Dr. Katherine Reid is an entrepreneur,
biochemist, and mother of five. Through her research and trial
and error, Dr. Reid determined that certain foods were
associated with her daughter's autistic behaviors. She started a
nonprofit business, Unblind My Mind, dedicated to helping others
improve health through improved diet. We are what we eat, but
what are we eating? Dr. Reid takes us on an intriguing journey
of diet changes that diminished her daughter's autistic
behaviors. She reveals an association between a common
ingredient in the Western diet and many chronic illnesses that
plague a number of countries. Dr. Reid tells the story that lead
to her founding Unblind My Mind.

Over the last two decades the frequency of
autism occurring in children has skyrocketed from 1 in 10,000 to
1 in 50, and still the scientific community is no closer to
determining a cause. When a man quits his job and moves into an
RV to travel the country in search of answers after a
devastating sickness brings him to the edge of despair, his
research leads him to the middle of what is one of the biggest
childhood epidemics of all time, and to the many unanswered
questions surrounding the issue.

Study Verifies Link between Pregnant Moms' Antidepressants and Autism in Children
An earlier research on the link between antidepressants and autism spawned this new U.S. study, which is done on rodents because experiments cannot be performed on pregnant women, as the baby's serotonin levels will be affected in the process of the experiment.

News report where glutathione was used to
treat autism... this was not a clinical study but the observations were interesting.
Immunocal raises glutathione in the entire body, including the brain, naturally with no
side effects.

How to be Sensory Smart in sending
your child back to school - Meet author Lindsey Biel

Sensory Processing Issues are present in
80% of children with autism. Diets, noises, smells, clothing material and lighting are
only a few of the experiences that can cause issues. But many other children without
autism can also be challenged by life's daily exposures. In this interview, author Lindsey
Biel ("Raising a Sensory Smart Child" - Penguin Books) returns to discuss new
learnings about Sensory Processing Disorder. And she presents a helpful, sensory-smart
plan to prepare your child for a low-stress return to school. Thanks, Lindsey! More
information at: www.sensorysmarts.com

Understanding the brain basis of
autism

The mission of the McGovern Institute is to
understand the brain in health and disease. In this video, McGovern Investigator, Nancy
Kanwisher discusses her role in an ambitious research project to understand the brain
basis of autism.

Biopic of Temple Grandin, an autistic woman
who overcame the limitations imposed on her by her condition to become an expert in the
field of animal husbandry. She developed an interest in cattle early in life while
spending time at her Aunt and Uncle's ranch. She did not speak until age four and had
difficulty right through high school, mostly in dealing with people. Her mother was very
supportive as were some of her teachers. She is noted for creating her 'hug box', widely
recognized today as a way of relieving stress and her humane design for the treatment of
cattle in processing plants, even winning an award from PETA. Today, she is a professor at
Colorado State University.

Dr. Gerald Fischbach, scientific director
of the Simons Foundation, gives a keynote address at the 10th anniversary celebration of
the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT. Dr. Fischbach, who oversees the Simons
Foundation Autism Research Initiative, gives a talk entitled, "Autism Research:
Progress and Promises."

Autism is a man-made epidemic according to
Dan Olmsted, co-author of The Age of Autism: Mercury, Medicine, and a Man-Made Epidemic.
Mr. Olmsted and co-author Mark Blaxill researched the use of mercury throughout recent
history and conclude, in part, that the use of mercury and other heavy metals in vaccines
is a root cause for the rise in Autism. And for good reason: mercury is the second most
lethal substance to humans (behind plutonium), and hundreds of times more toxic than lead,
and yet it has been injected into infants, babies and children in the name of
"medicine." Another metal used in vaccines - aluminum - is also extremely toxic.
Flu shots contain organic mercury, which is many times more toxic than the mercury found
in a thermometer. The use of extremely toxic substances in "medicine" -
especially heavy metals like mercury - causes an untold number of neurological problems in
children, including Autism. Two unique problems that most Autistic children share in
common are very serious digestive problems, and an inability to excrete heavy metals, such
as mercury. Mercury poisoning will actually *cause* both of these health problems. For
those already exposed, the solution is alternative medicine treatment that helps repair
the gut and eliminate toxic metals from the body.

According to this theory, impaired
intestinal absorption of vitamin B12 produces a deficiency resulting in impaired nerve
function. Dietary vitamin B12 is normally absorbed in the ileum of the small intestine.
Pathology in the ileal mucosa of autistic patients, as observed to occur in the studies
noted above, could interfere with the transport process for vitamin B12 in the ileal
absorptive cells. If absorption is severely inhibited, the resulting lower blood vitamin
B12 could interfere with the formation of myelin, the lipoprotein material surrounding the
axon of myelinated nerve fibers (98). Myelin is necessary for normal conduction of the
action potential in myelinated nerve fibers. Wakefield et al. (14) observed that, in
conjunction with the intestinal pathology observed in his autistic population, vitamin B12
absorption was significantly reduced in all eight autistic individuals in which urinary
methylmalonic acid excretion was measured. Methylmalonic acid is normally converted to
succinyl coenzyme A by a vitamin B12 dependent mutase. Dietary vitamin B12 deficiency
results in impaired mutase activity and spillover of methylmalonic acid into the urine.
Wakefield et al. (14) proposed that nerve myelogenesis, which is dependent upon vitamin
B12, may be impaired in autistic children as a result. Direct evidence of vitamin B12
deficiency and impaired myelogenesis in autism is lacking at this time.

Narrated by Kate Winslet, this inspiring
film follows one woman's quest to unlock her autistic son's mind. Margret, whose
ten-year-old son Keli is severely autistic, has tried a number of treatments to help her
son. Consumed by an unquenchable thirst for knowledge about this mysterious and complex
condition, she travels from her home in Iceland to the United States and Europe, meeting
with top autism experts and advocates. She also connects with several other families
touched by autism, whose struggles echo her own: the endless doctor visits and experiments
with different treatments, the complication of doing everyday tasks, and the inability to
communicate - perhaps the most painful and frustrating aspect of autism. But as she comes
across innovative new therapies with the potential to break down the walls of autism,
Margret finds hope that her son may be able to express himself on a level she never
thought possible.

Mother Shares Her Children's Story
of Stem Cell Treatments for Autism

A mother of two children shares the
significant changes that stem cell treatments for autism have made in her boys lives!
Learn more at http://ProGenaCell.com/

Vitamine D tekort en autisme

A 2008 review detailed the devastating
effect gestational vitamin D deficiency has on developing mammalian brains. Unfortunately,
the tiny 10 lg (400 IU) dose in prenatal vitamins is virtually irrelevant in preventing
the current epidemic of gestational vitamin D deficiency. For this reason, in 2007, the
Canadian Paediatric Society cautioned pregnant women they may require not 400 IU / day but
2000 IU / day, or more, to prevent gestational vitamin D deficiency.

John Elder Robison is grateful for Dr.
Alvaro Pascual-Leone and the brilliant doctors and scientists in BIDMC's TMS lab. He is
also grateful for the opportunity to have contributed to what I believe is one of the
fundamental breakthroughs in autism research and neuroscience.

Asperge syndrome: Trouble Making
Friends

Autism In Children: The Canary In
The Mine

Autism in children is devastating and it
foreshadows a health epidemic in the United States. Conventional doctors will tell you
that nothing can be done. This isn't true. It's a confession by conventional medicine that
they don't know and won't investigate the cause of autism in children.

Advanced BioCell - Nutrition
Testing Benefits for Autism

Nutrition testing improved the behavior of
an autistic 13-year old boy by 20-30% according to the boy's parents in this
straight-from-the-heart story too many people share.

Julie Matthews visits Underground Wellness
Radio to discuss her book, "Nourishing Hope for Autism" and why she believes
that autism diet, nutrition and supplementation are fundamental to the health and healing
of children with autism. Hosted by Sean Croxton of Underground Wellness.

My autistic son at the age of 3 years, 11
months, just a few days before his fourth birthday. He is now quite responsive to
questions, makes frequent spontaneous comments, and greets and addresses others by name.
We have been pursuing biomedical treatments for 14 months now, including dietary
restrictions, gastrointestinal/immunological medications, specific nutritional
supplementation, and most recently, mild chelation with DMSA suppositories every 2 weeks.
All of the spontaneous commenting and most of the conversational responses have shown up
since beginning the DMSA. We also had a moderate behavioral regression (mostly an increase
in OCD behaviors, as well as a loss in focus and attention span) lasting several months
while he battled a very resistant strep infection earlier this year. After repeated rounds
of Zithromax were unable to eradicate it, we opted to have his adenoids removed, and the
behaviors were cleared up within a week post-surgery. As you can see, he is teaching
himself to play several instruments (partially by imitation and partially by ear,)
including the keyboard, xylophone, and toy saxophone, and with the help of starfall.com is
well on his way to reading. Feel free to come say hello on my cooking site,
www.thegfcflady.com.

In the world of Autism, Temple Grandin is a
legend. She has singularly contributed more to science's knowledge of autism than any
other one individual. There's a reason she's #23 on Time's list of 100 Most Influential
People... and that Hollywood is producing movies about her. After her speaking engagement
at a Future Horizon's conference here in Minneapolis today, Temple and I had an intense,
10 minutes conversation. We touched on a number of her favorite subjects including autism
as a gift, preparing future autists for successful careers, her movie, key learnings about
autism and more.

Alex talks with Dr. Andrew Wakefield, the
British former surgeon and researcher who was banned by the General Medical Council from
practicing medicine in UK for his research and public statements linking the
Measles-Mumps-Rubella vaccine to childhood autism. In November 2001 Wakefield became a
fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists in recognition of his research publications.
Dr. Wakefield is the author of Callous Disregard: Autism and Vaccines -- The Truth Behind
a Tragedy, available at the Infowars Store

Professor Gene Stubbs of the University of
Oregon needs help with his study about vitamin D and autism. He is testing the theory that
a mother with one child with autism will not have another if the mother takes vitamin D
during her pregnancy. Women no longer need to come to the University of Oregon but can
participate at a distance. Professor Stubbs writes:

"Can anyone assist us in recruiting
mothers who already have children with autism and the mother is pregnant again before her
third trimester? We are giving the mothers 5000 IU D3/day. So far every mother who has
delivered has delivered within 1 week or on the date of expected delivery, and the babies
are well within normal birth weights. They have not progressed far enough in age for us to
screen for autism, but so far, the babies are interactive, have eye contact, are vocal
etc..

However, we need more research families to
participate. We have recruited other doctors to help us recruit and we have recruited
doctors on the Vitamin D Council sites to help us recruit. We still need more families to
participate to make our results significant. The families no longer have to come to our
site to participate. If you know of any families who potentially might be eligible for our
research, please give them my research assistant's phone number, 503-351-9255."

Thank you,

John Cannell, MD

The Vitamin D Council

Dr. Wakefield reveals the inside
story of the vaccine-autism connection

In his new book Callous Disregard, Dr.
Andrew Wakefield talks about how he confronted a disease and then the medical system that
sought and still seeks to deny that link, leaving millions of children to suffer and a
world at risk.

Andrew J. Wakefield, MB, BS, FRCS, FRCPath,
is an academic gastroenterologist. He received his medical degree from St. Marys Hospital
Medical School (part of the University of London) in 1981, and pursued a career in
gastrointestinal surgery with a particular interest in inflammatory bowel disease. He has
published over 130 original scientific articles, book chapters, and invited scientific
commentaries. He and his wife, Carmel, live in Austin, Texas, and have four children:
James, Sam, Imogen, and Corin.

Max's Regression into AUTISM
following vaccinations

Experts can tell me what they want but my
sons regression started immediately after vaccinations. You can see that he was verbal,
engaging, noticed facial expressions, and himself made expressions. Where now at 4 years
old he is non-verbal, doesn't do facial expressions. On top of this Self Funded insurance
plans from Big corporations don't cover Autism Treatments, simply because there is no
Federal LAW for them to say they have to. If I had an insurance that is under State Law
they would have to pay for it. This is insurance discrimination, on top of MEDICAL MAFIA
damaging my son and taking no responsibility for it. God this just makes me mad. We speak
Polish at home.

The Autism-Mercury-Connection and
How to Detoxify Heavy Metals from the Brain

For the past couple of decades rates of
autism seem to have risen dramatically but now a US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
has pin-pointed a sudden jump in cases since 1988
and suspects yet to be identified environmental triggers are a likely explanation.
[Link]

Na veel gegoogle de studie gevonden:

Autistic disorder (AD) is a severe
neurodevelopmental disorder typically identified in early childhood. Both genetic and
environmental factors are implicated in its etiology. The number of individuals identified
as having autism has increased dramatically in recent years, but whether some proportion
of this increase is real is unknown. If real, susceptible populations may have exposure to
controllable exogenous stressors. Using literature AD data from long-term (10-year)
studies, we determined cumulative incidence of AD for each cohort within each study. These
data for each study were examined for a changepoint year in which the AD cumulative
incidence first increased. We used data sets from Denmark, California, Japan, and
a worldwide composite of studies. In the Danish, California, and worldwide data sets, we
found that an increase in AD cumulative incidence began about 1988-1989. The
Japanese study (1988-1996) had AD cumulative incidence increasing continuously, and no
changepoint year could be calculated. Although the debate about the nature of increasing
autism continues, the potential for this increase to be real and involve exogenous
environmental stressors exists. The timing of an increase in autism incidence may help in
screening for potential candidate environmental stressors. [Link]

During the last decade the reported cases
of autism and other illnesses related to brain development have dramatically increased not
just in the U.S. but around the world. Scientists say the increase cannot be explained by
genetics and they believe it is linked to the increase of toxic chemicals in the
environment. Producer Zulima Palacio talked to several scientists and prepared this story.
Mil Arcega narrates.

It was interesting to read your recent
newsletter regarding poor vitamin D status of Somali women and risk of autism and I was
glad to see that scientists are confirming your autism theory. I am a registered dietitian
from the UK and have a very strong interest in Vitamin D research. I have a particular
interest in ethnic minorities, especially Somali women whom I have treated several for
vitamin D deficiency. Two of the Somali ladies I have treated are sisters, and both have
multiple lists of health complaints from rare autoimmune skin conditions to the obvious
aching bones and muscle weakness. One of the sisters has an autistic son who is 3 years of
age now. I am sure this is of no surprise to you the fact that she has an autistic child
but her first vitamin D test came back at a staggering 0.5 ng/ml! Which I believe would be
an accurate reading as it was carried out via the NHS and all local tests are sent to labs
which are DiaSorin compatible. I have not heard of vitamin D levels that low but I would
be interested to hear if you have heard of similar experiences. I really appreciate the
valuable work you undertake in order to get the message out there about such an important
autism issue.

BMC Biology and Journal of Biology, the
flagship biology journals of BioMed Central, have joined forces to publish high-quality
research, review and comment. As a new feature for the relaunch, this exclusive video
interview has Martin Raff explaining as a grandfather and neuroscientist what he thinks is
wrong with current views of autism, and what genomics will contribute.

A researcher finds new clues about what
causes autism. Scientists have long known that autism is some type of developmental
disorder in the brain, but there's never been a definitive answer for its cause.

UNINFORMED CONSENT, Washington DC. Rep. Dan
Burton, Chair of Gov Reform Committee comments on vaccines and mercury showing a video of
an autistic child in full melt down. - Followed by Dr. Andrew Wakefield MD UK,
well-respected scientist, whose discovery of the vaccine strain measles virus in the gut
of autistic children set off an international frenzy from public health authorities
attempting to marginalize Wakefield for their own irresponsibility in refusing to address
these issues with vaccines. Many believe public health authorities have become fronts for
big pharma who profit unlimited amounts from the illnesses produced by the delivery of
contaminants contained in vaccines like mercury (thimerisal). A collection of the IOM
Meeting called "What Really Happened at the IOM?" are available in DVD at:
www.uninformedconsent.org

Methyl-B12 has shown to be very effective
in treating autism. Most parents have seen almost miraculous improvement in their children
very quickly. Dr. Kurt Woeller interview Dr. Neubrander about this highly successful
autism treatment.

Video - The
Horse boyHow far would you travel to
heal someone you love? An intensely personal yet epic spiritual journey, The Horse Boy
follows one Texas couple and their autistic son as they trek on horseback through Outer
Mongolia in a desperate attempt to treat his condition with shamanic healing.

Video - The
Sunshine Boy by Fridrik Thor FridrikssonThe Sunshine Boy is a moving
documentary about autism by the Academy Award-nominated director Fridrik Thor Fridriksson.
With narration by Kate Winslet and music by BjŲrk and Sigur Ross. World premiere on Sept
12 at the Toronto International FIlm Festival 2009.

Surf2Heal2008/Parents&Kids

Surf2Heal is an organisation set up in 2008
to provide Surf camps & instruction facilities for young people on the Autistic
spectrum. These are excerpts from a fly-on-the-wall documentary filmed by Jarlath Rice at
the inaugaral camp in Garrettstown, Kinsale, Co. Cork Ireland 2008

Video highlights from a two-day conference
held on September 24-25, 2008 at the University of South Florida in Tampa, Florida. The
"Task Force on Autism Spectrum Disorders" was created by Governor Charlie Crist
by Executive Order 08-36 on March 7, 2008.

What if the psychological affliction Autism
had never existed? What if ever increasing numbers children were showing up in schools
without speech, lost in their own worlds, and having unexplained seizures? Would we be
diagnosing these children with a developmental disorder? Or would we be looking for root
causes of their DISEASE and treating what they have medically? What if your children have
is not Autism at all, but a medical disease in most part caused by viruses? According to a
new study appearing in the October 2009 issue of SCIENCE, the latest research supports
this idea and it is exactly what I have been advocating for twenty-seven years.

California Autism &
Environmental Chemicals

Surprising news for the nay-sayers about
the rates of California autism. Plus, truly shocking advice for the author of a new study
on California's autism rates.

In this award-winning documentary film Gary
Null explores the causes and solutions to the recent epidemic of autism in our children.
In this film you will see children who have made an extraordinary recovery from autism
speak in their own words.

Invitation to Doctors to participate in a
pilot study of vitamin D and autism.

This is an invitation to doctors who are
interested in vitamin D and have access to families with autism to participate in a pilot
study entitled: "Study of Vitamin D to prevent Autism in Newborn Siblings" . We
are using vitamin D during pregnancy and lactation to prevent the recurrence of autism in
newborn siblings in families who already have one child with autism.

If you are interested in participating in
this pilot study or have questions, please call Dr. Gene Stubbs at 503-939-7351 or call
Kathy Henley at 503-351-9255. Or send us an email at stubbsgene@comcast.net or
henleyjks@att.net. If sending a letter is preferred, send it to:

Gene Stubbs, M.D.,P.C.,
7032 SW 3rd Avenue,
Portland, OR 97219
USA

School for autistic children breaks
ground in China

The Stars and Rain school is unique in
China -- the country's first school for autistic children. Since it opened in 1993, it has
helped thousands of children. While working with its special needs students, it has a
larger goal -- to encourage acceptance in China of a condition still largely
misunderstood. Duration: 01:44.

Why are so many children in the U.S.
diagnosed with some form of Autism Spectrum Disorder? Is there a connection between
Vaccines and Autism? In this program, two nationally recognized journalists will debate
this topic. Join Arthur Allen, author of Vaccine: The Controversial Story of Medicine's
Greatest Lifesaver and David Kirby author of Evidence of Harm, as they present both sides
of this debate.

UCLA scientists have discovered a variant of a gene called CACNA1G that may increase a
childs risk of developing autism, particularly in boys. The journal Molecular
Psychiatry publishes the findings in its May 19 advance online edition. Classic autism
strikes boys four times more often than girls. When including the entire spectrum of
autism disorders, such as the milder Asperger syndrome, boys are diagnosed 10 times more
often than girls. This is a strong finding, said Dr. Stanley Nelson, professor
of human genetics at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. No one has
scrutinized the role that CACNA1G plays in autism. We found that a common form of
the gene occurs more frequently in the DNA of families that have two or more sons affected
by autism, but no affected daughters, he explained. Our study may explain why
boys are more susceptible to the disorder than girls. Nelson and his colleagues
zeroed in on a region of Chromosome 17 that previous studies have tied to autism. The
research team scoured the DNA of 1,046 members of families with at least two sons affected
by autism for common gene variants. A variant is a gene that has undergone subtle changes
from the normal DNA yet is shared by a significant portion of the population.

According to a recent paper entitled Laughter Differs in Children with Autism: An
Acoustic Analysis of Laughter Produced by Children with and without the Disorder,
children diagnosed with autism produce different laughs than their nonautistic peers.
We revealed that children with autism produce very engaging laughs that we call
voiced laughs, said William Hudenko, the lead author on the paper and
assistant professor of psychology at Ithaca College.The study recorded laughter during a
series of playful interactions with an examiner. The results showed that children with
autism exhibited only one type of laughter, compared to two types of laughter for
nonautistic children. There was no difference in laugh duration, frequency, change in or
number of laughs per interaction.We hypothesized that children with autism may be
expressing laughter primarily in response to positive internal states, rather than using
laughter to negotiate social interactions, said Hudenko. Hudenko specializes in
child and family clinical psychology. His clinical experience involves children who have
developmental disorders and disruptive behavior disorders.

Some deny there's a link but the rate of
autism is many times higher than 25 years ago. The number of inoculations kids receive is
more than 4 times higher than the early 80s. Now the gov't is trying to rush through a new
vaccine for the H1N1 Swine flu. Will they try to force us all to get it?

Autism and diet

I no longer see autism as a disorder of the brain but as a disorder that affects the
brain, Herbert says. It also affects the immune system and the gut. One very
striking piece of evidence many of us have noticed is that when autistic children go in
for certain diagnostic tests and are told not to eat or drink anything ahead of time,
parents often report their childs symptoms improveuntil they start eating
again after the procedure.

AMA journal publishes by Cornell
Researchers study showing evidence of a major environmental trigger for autism

The American Medical Association journal Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine
has published a new study by researchers at Cornell University indicating evidence of an
environmental trigger for autism among genetically vulnerable children. It is the first
peer-reviewed study to positively associate the prevalence of autism to a factor related
to the levels of precipitation in the areas in which children live. "This analysis is
an important first step towards identifying a specific environmental trigger, or triggers,
for autism," said lead author Michael Waldman of the Johnson Graduate School of
Management at Cornell. While many autism experts believe that the disorder is triggered by
the combination of an environmental trigger and a genetic predisposition (experts have
identified genes related to the condition but do not have a full understanding of the full
set of related genes), previous literature provides few clues concerning what the
important environmental triggers might be. "Our hope is that this study will spur
those in the medical community to investigate what the specific trigger might be that is
driving our findings, so that countless children can be spared an Autism Spectrum Disorder
diagnosis," said Waldman, a professor of management and economics.

Autism in the UK costs more than
$41 billion every year, shows new research

Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore and Washinton DC (18 May 2009)  Research
published this week in the Journal Autism, published by SAGE, estimate the annual costs of
autism spectrum disorder (ASD) to be more than £27 billion a year. The costs of
supporting children with ASDs were estimated to be £2.7 billion per year, £25 billion
each year for adults. The findings will be presented at the Autism & Employment
Workshop taking place today at Goldsmiths, University of London. With the National Audit
Office report on the provision of services for Autism imminent, participants at the
workshop will review current research, policy and services and discuss the challenges
facing people with ASDs finding work and in the workplace. The Economic impacts of autism
research, led by Professor Martin Knapp of the London School of Economics, provides the
most comprehensive analysis of the economic impacts of ASD in the UK to date. Speaking at
the Goldsmiths event, Knapp will reveal the significant costs to the public sector, in
particular the health system, social care agencies, education and housing budgets. He will
also outline the steep rise in costs for adults, calling for increased early intervention
for those with ASDs. Costs were based on estimates for 539,766 people with ASD in the UK:
432,750 adults (aged 18 and over) and 107,016 children and adolescents (aged 0-17). There
was no single, nationally representative data source in the UK looking at these costs, so
the researchers combined existing data estimating prevalence; intellectual disability;
place of residence; service use; lost productivity; and costs per individual. Average
annual costs were also aggregated to estimate the lifetime cost of someone with ASD,
calculated by combining costs for different age groups with life expectancy estimates. The
costs of supporting children with ASDs were estimated to be £2.7 billion per year. For
adults, these costs rise to £25 billion each year. Lifetime costs for someone with autism
were calculated as £0.8 million for someone with autism without intellectual disability,
and £1.2 million for someone with autism who was also intellectually disabled (50 percent
higher). Significant costs were attributed to public services. For children, the highest
costs were for special education, health and social care and respite care. 95 percent of
the total national cost for children was accounted for by services funded by the state,
and 5 percent by family expenses. For adults, the largest cost elements were
staffed/supported accommodation, lost productivity because the individual with ASD was not
employed, and hospital services. For non-intellectually disabled adults, the largest
elements were lost productivity for the individual, hospital costs, and lost productivity
for parents. 59 percent of the total was attributable to publicly funded services, 36
percent to lost employment for the individual with ASD, and the remaining 5 percent to
family expenses. The researchers suggest that the high costs associated with supporting
adults with ASD warrant attention, supporting calls for wider provisions of early
interventions with children and young people with ASD, which have been shown to alter
patterns of behaviour. They also call on the government to review policy frameworks for
supporting those with ASDs, in particular reviewing support for independent living and for
increasing productivity. The researchers however caution that the effectiveness and
cost-effectiveness of intervention must be evaluated further. They add, "given the
autistic spectrum includes a number of disorders and a wide range of needs, symptoms and
characteristics, it is likely that a wide range of behavioural, educational and medical
interventions could be required in order to meet some or all individual needs." They
conclude, "the costs presented in this paper certainly do not provide an economic
case for early intervention, but they do emphasise the importance of addressing just that
question. If early intervention could successfully change some aspects of behaviour that
are cost-raising, both in childhood and subsequently, it may allow cost savings to be made
and quality of life improvements to be achieved."

Survey explores medical care for
children with autism using complementary alternative medicine

Primary care physicians more likely to ask about CAM use when caring for autistic
children. In a national survey conducted by the University of Minnesota, primary care
physicians report that they are more likely to ask patients with autism about
complementary alternative medicine (CAM) use. These physicians also desire more CAM
education for this population. The studyĻ of 539 U.S. physicians, published this week in
Springers Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, explores the attitudes and
practices of primary care physicians caring for children with autism using CAM treatments.

Autistics are up to 40 percent faster at problem-solving than non-autistics, according to
a new Universitť de Montrťal and Harvard University study published in the journal Human
Brain Mapping. As part of the investigation, participants were asked to complete patterns
in the Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices (RSPM)  test that measures
hypothesis-testing, problem-solving and learning skills. "While both groups performed
RSPM test with equal accuracy, the autistic group responded more quickly and appeared to
use perceptual regions of the brain to accelerate problem-solving," says lead author
Isabelle SouliŤres, a post-doctoral fellow at Harvard University who completed the
experiment at the Universitť de Montrťal. "Some critics agued that autistics would
be unable to complete the RSPM because of its complexity, yet our study shows autistics
complete it as efficiently and have a more highly developed perception than
non-autistics." Fifteen autistics and 18 non-autistics were recruited for the study.
Participants were 14 to 36 years old and matched according to their preliminary results on
the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale. All subjects underwent magnetic resonance imaging
to explore their neural activity during RSPM problem-solving. While autism is a common
neurodevelopmental disability characterized by profound differences in information
processing and analysis, this study showed that autistics have efficient reasoning
abilities that build on their perceptual strengths. "This study builds on our
previous findings and should help educators capitalize on the intellectual abilities of
autistics," says senior researcher Laurent Mottron, the new Marcel & Rolande
Gosselin Research Chair in Autism Cognitive Neuroscience of the Universitť de Montrťal
and psychiatry professor. "The limits of autistics should constantly be pushed and
their educational materials should never be simplified."

Recently, Harvard researchers reported that children with autism have a wide range of
genetic defects, making it nearly impossible to develop a simple genetic test to identify
the disorder. Now, University of Missouri researchers are studying 3-D imaging to reveal
correlations in the facial features and brain structures of children with autism spectrum
disorder (ASD), which will enable them to develop a formula for earlier detection of the
disorder. The researchers anticipate their work also will reveal genetic clues that can
direct additional research. Autism is a brain disorder characterized by a complex of
social, communication and behavioral difficulties.When you compare the faces and
head shapes of children with specific types of autism to other children, it is obvious
there are variations. Currently, autism diagnosis is purely behavior based and doctors use
tape measurements to check for facial and brain dissimilarities. We are developing a
quantitative method that will accurately measure these differences and allow for earlier,
more precise detection of specific types of the disorder, said Ye Duan, assistant
computer science professor in the MU College of Engineering. Once we have created a
formula, we can pre-screen children by performing a quick, non-invasive scan of each
childs face and brain to check for abnormalities. Early detection is crucial in
treating children and preparing families.

Scientists have identified a relationship between two proteins in the brain that has links
to both nicotine addiction and autism. The finding has led to speculation that existing
drugs used to curb nicotine addiction might serve as the basis for potential therapies to
alleviate the symptoms of autism. The discovery identified a defining role for a protein
made by the neurexin-1 gene, which is located in brain cells and assists in connecting
neurons as part of the brains chemical communication system. The neurexin-1 beta
proteins job is to lure another protein, a specific type of nicotinic acetylcholine
receptor, to the synapses, where the receptor then has a role in helping neurons
communicate signals among themselves and to the rest of the body. This function is
important in autism because previous research has shown that people with autism have a
shortage of these nicotinic receptors in their brains. Meanwhile, scientists also know
that people who are addicted to nicotine have too many of these receptors in their brains.

Hyperbaric treatment for children with autism has reportedly led to improvements in the
condition, though previous studies were uncontrolled. Now, a new study published in the
open access journal, BMC Pediatrics, is the first controlled trial to report clinical
improvements. Hyperbaric therapy traditionally involves inhaling up to 100% oxygen at a
pressure greater than 1 atmosphere (atm) in a pressurized chamber. In the first
randomized, controlled, double-blind multicenter trial, Dan Rossignol and colleagues, from
six centers in the USA, studied 62 children, aged 2-7 years, to assess the efficacy of
hyperbaric treatment in children with autism. The children were randomly assigned to
either 40 hours of hyperbaric treatment at 1.3 atm and 24% oxygen (treatment group) or
slightly pressurized room air at 1.03 atm and 21% oxygen (non-treatment group). Clinical
outcomes were evaluated by three different scales: the Clinical Global Impression (CGI)
scale, the Aberrant Behavior Checklist (ABC), and the Autism Treatment Evaluation
Checklist (ATEC). The study found that children with autism in the treatment group had
significant improvements in overall functioning, receptive language, social interaction,
eye contact, and sensory/cognitive awareness compared to children in the non-treatment
group.

Some kids with autism may have a genetic defect that affects the muscles, according to
research that will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology 60th Anniversary
Annual Meeting in Chicago, April 1219, 2008. The study looked at 37 children with
autism spectrum disorders who were evaluated for mitochondrial disease, which causes
muscle weakness and prevents a child from being able to participate in physical activities
and sports. Mitochondrial disease occurs when genetic mutations affect the mitochondria,
or the part of the cell that releases energy. A total of 24 of the children, or 65
percent, had defects in the process by which cells produce and synthesize energy in the
muscles, or oxidative phosphorylation defects in the skeletal muscles. Most children
with autism spectrum disorders do not have recognizable abnormalities when you look at
genetic tests, imaging, and metabolic tests, said study author John Shoffner, MD,
owner of Medical Neurogenetics, LLC in Atlanta, GA, and member of the American Academy of
Neurology. But a subset of these children does have significant defects in this
area. Identifying this defect is important for understanding how genes that produce autism
spectrum disorders impact the function of the mitochondria.

Parents of children with autism are increasingly turning to sensory integration treatment
to help their children deal with the disorder, and theyre seeing good results. In
2007, 71 percent of parents who pursued alternatives to traditional treatment used sensory
integration methods, and 91 percent found these methods helpful. A new study from Temple
University researchers, presented this month at the American Occupational Therapy
Associations 2008 conference, found that children with autistic spectrum disorders
who underwent sensory integration therapy exhibited fewer autistic mannerisms compared to
children who received standard treatments. Such mannerisms, including repetitive hand
movements or actions, making noises, jumping or having highly restricted interests, often
interfere with paying attention and learning.

Despite the fact the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has not approved any
prescription medications to treat the symptoms of autism and related disorders, drugs are
frequently -- and increasingly -- being given to autistic children, according to a study
in the June issue of Archives of General Psychiatry. An especially popular medication for
autistic kids is the antidepressant citalopram, sold under the brand name Celexa, a
selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI), which interferes with the way the brain
regulates the neurotransmitter serotonin.

Rates of autism are higher within the rainiest counties of three different states, in an
analysis conducted by researchers from Cornell University and published in the Archives of
Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, suggesting that environmentally related factors such as
vitamin D deficiency might play a role in the disorder. "If you look at the autism
literature now, they're much more open to an environmental trigger," lead researcher
Michael Waldman said.

Heightened level of amygdala
activity may cause social deficits in autism

Something strange is going on in the amygdala  an almond-shaped structure deep in
the human brain  among people with autism. Researchers at the University of
Washington have discovered an increased pattern of brain activity in the amygdalas of
adults with autism that may be linked to the social deficits that typically are associated
with the disorder. Previous research at the UW and elsewhere has shown that abnormal
growth patterns in the amygdala are commonly found among young children diagnosed with
autism.The amygdala is popularly associated with the "fight-or-flight response"
in dangerous situations. But it has other functions, including identifying faces and
situations and evaluating social information such as emotions. The new research shows that
brain activation in adults with autism remains elevated long after similar brain regions
of typically developed adults have stopped being activated when exposed to a series of
pictures of human faces. A decrease in activation over time to the same type of
information is called neural habituation and is connected with learning, according to
Natalia Kleinhans, lead author of the new study and a UW research assistant professor of
radiology. "What we are seeing is hyperexcitability or overarousal of the amygdala,
which suggests that neurons in the amygdala are firing more than expected," said
Kleinhans, who is associated with the UW Autism Center. "If you consider that
habituation reflects learning in as simple a task as looking at a face, slowness to
habituate in people with autism may contribute even more markedly to difficulty with more
complex social interactions and social cognition. If the brain is not reacting typically
to a static face with a neutral expression, you can imagine how difficult it may be for
someone with autism to pick up more subtle social cues." The National Institute of
Child Health and Human Development and the National Institute of Mental Health funded the
research, which appears in the online edition of The American Journal of Psychiatry.

Is elevated testosterone specific to autism? What are the consequences for individuals
with autism and future families contemplating pregnancy, particularly in light of recent
media coverage depicting autism as a serious debilitating condition?

According to today's Science Daily, "New research from the UC Davis M.I.N.D.
Institute and Center for Children's Environmental Health has found that antibodies in the
blood of mothers of children with autism bind to fetal brain cells, potentially
interrupting healthy brain development.

At the 21st Congress of the ECNP 2008 in Barcelona, professor Marion Leboyer, University
of Paris, France, presented the compelling neurobiological story of discovering the first
autism genes. Thereby she highlighted new findings on the role of gene mutations, their
association with synapse abnormalities, and -- surprisingly -- a connection between
circadian rhythms and autism risk. These insights will nurture applied projects on the
development of new therapeutic strategies.

Dr. Brian Fallon of Columbia leads the Lyme Disease Research Program. He leads the
NIH-funded study, utilizing brain imaging and chronic Lyme disease. Regarding autism,
there is speculation about the onset of regressive symptoms. Although there is need for
further study, it demonstrates the notion to leave no stones unturned.

Individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) tend to stare at people's mouths rather
than their eyes. Now, an NIH-funded study in 2-year-olds with the social deficit disorder
suggests why they might find mouths so attractive: lip-syncthe exact match of lip
motion and speech sound. Such audiovisual synchrony preoccupied toddlers who have autism,
while their unaffected peers focused on socially meaningful movements of the human body,
such as gestures and facial expressions. "Typically developing children pay special
attention to human movement from very early in life, within days of being born. But in
children with autism, even as old as two years, we saw no evidence of this,"
explained Ami Klin, Ph.D., of the Yale Child Study Center, who led the research.
"Toddlers with autism are missing rich social information imparted by these cues, and
this is likely to adversely affect the course of their development." Klin, Warren
Jones, Ph.D., and colleagues at Yale, report the findings of their study, funded in part
by the National Institute of Health's National Institute of Mental Health, online March
29, 2009 in the journal Nature. For the first time, this study has pinpointed what grabs
the attention of toddlers with ASDs," said NIMH Director Thomas R. Insel, M.D.
"In addition to potential uses in screening for early diagnosis, this line of
research holds promise for development of new therapies based on redirecting visual
attention in children with these disorders." A eureka moment in the research came
when researchers followed up on a clue from children's responses to audiovisual synchrony
embedded in a nursery rhyme cartoon. While it was known that people with autism do not
spontaneously orient to social signals, it was unclear what early-emerging mechanism may
contribute to that. Nor was it clear exactly what they were attending to instead. To find
out, Klin, Jones and colleagues tracked the eye movements of two-year-olds with and
without the disorder while they looked at cartoon animations on split-screen displays.The
researchers borrowed a technique from the video game industry, called motion capture. They
then reduced the movements to only points of light at each joint in the body, like
animated constellations. These cartoons played normally  upright and forward 
on one half of the screen, but upside-down and in reverse on the other half. The inverted
presentation engages different brain circuits and is known to disrupt perception of
biological motion in young children. The normal soundtrack of the actor's voice, recorded
when the animations were made, accompanied the presentations.

autism is a whole body medical disease, not a hopeless genetic mental disorder. Genetics
do play a role in making children susceptible, but the environmental insults of toxins,
antibiotics, bacteria, fungi, and viruses must be introduced to cause the disease.

Abnormal antibodies in maternal blood that bind to fetal brain cells may contribute to the
development of autism, according to two new studies from the MIND Institute at the
University of California, Davis.

In the first study of its kind researchers will use video clips of spontaneously produced
facial expressions in a real life social context to explore emotion recognition in autism.
This research, carried out at The University of Nottingham, will go beyond the more
artificial emotion recognition tasks that have previously been used. The eye movements of
volunteers will also be tracked to find out which areas of the face were looked at while
volunteers make spontaneous judgements. The study is being conducted by PhD student Sarah
Cassidy who is a member of the Autism Research Team based in the School of Psychology. Her
work has been funded through a PhD studentship from the Economic and Social Research
Council. Her work will investigate if people with autism look at faces, particularly in
the eye region, differently. If so, does this have any relationship with their ability to
recognise emotions in others? What is their understanding of emotions in different social
contexts? And as a consequence, how difficult is it for them to socialise and communicate
with other people?

Scientists at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have proposed a
sweeping new theory of autism that suggests that the brains of people with autism are
structurally normal but dysregulated, meaning symptoms of the disorder might be
reversible. The central tenet of the theory, published in the March issue of Brain
Research Reviews, is that autism is a developmental disorder caused by impaired regulation
of the locus coeruleus, a bundle of neurons in the brain stem that processes sensory
signals from all areas of the body. The new theory stems from decades of anecdotal
observations that some autistic children seem to improve when they have a fever, only to
regress when the fever ebbs. A 2007 study in the journal Pediatrics took a more rigorous
look at fever and autism, observing autistic children during and after fever episodes and
comparing their behavior with autistic children who didn't have fevers. This study
documented that autistic children experience behavior changes during fever. "On a
positive note, we are talking about a brain region that is not irrevocably altered. It
gives us hope that, with novel therapies, we will eventually be able to help people with
autism," says theory co-author Mark F. Mehler, M.D., chairman of neurology and
director of the Institute for Brain Disorders and Neural Regeneration at Einstein. Autism
is a complex developmental disability that affects a person's ability to communicate and
interact with others. It usually appears during the first three years of life. Autism is
called a "spectrum disorder" since it affects individuals differently and to
varying degrees. It is estimated that one in every 150 American children has some degree
of autism. Einstein researchers contend that scientific evidence directly points to the
locus coeruleusnoradrenergic (LC-NA) system as being involved in autism. "The
LC-NA system is the only brain system involved both in producing fever and controlling
behavior," says co-author Dominick P. Purpura, M.D., dean emeritus and distinguished
professor of neuroscience at Einstein. The locus coeruleus has widespread connections to
brain regions that process sensory information. It secretes most of the brain's
noradrenaline, a neurotransmitter that plays a key role in arousal mechanisms, such as the
"fight or flight" response. It is also involved in a variety of complex
behaviors, such as attentional focusing (the ability to concentrate attention on
environmental cues relevant to the task in hand, or to switch attention from one task to
another). Poor attentional focusing is a defining characteristic of autism.

Some of the symptoms of the autistic condition Asperger Syndrome, such as a need for
routine and resistance to change, could be linked to levels of the stress hormone
cortisol, suggests new research led by the University of Bath. Normally, people have a
surge of this hormone shortly after waking, with levels gradually decreasing throughout
the day. It is thought this surge makes the brain alert, preparing the body for the day
and helping the person to be aware of changes happening around them. However, a study led
by Dr Mark Brosnan and Dr Julie Turner-Cobb from the Department of Psychology at the
University of Bath, and Dr David Jessop from the University of Bristol, has found that
children with Asperger Syndrome (AS) do not experience this surge.The researchers believe
these findings may help to explain why individuals with this condition have difficulties
with minor changes to their routine or changes in their environment. The study has been
published in the peer-reviewed journal Psychoneuroendocrinology. Dr Brosnan explained
"Cortisol is one of a family of stress hormones that acts like a 'red alert' that is
triggered by stressful situations allowing a person to react quickly to changes around
them."In most people, there is a two-fold increase in levels of this hormone within
30 minutes of waking up, with levels gradually declining during the day as part of the
internal body clock. "Our study found that the children with AS didn't have this peak
although levels of the hormone still decreased during the day as normal.

The journal, Archives of General Psychiatry published the finding of a research study that
found "Citalopram Ineffective in Children With Autism." Citalopram is sold under
the brand name Celexaģ in U.S. and Canada by Forest Laboratories, Inc. Celexaģ is an
oral selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) antidepressant drug.

Many autism treatment centers are incorporating the use of Bentonite clay in their
successful treatment regimens. Detoxing and chelating with calcium Bentonite clay baths is
proving to be a key factor in their success. Studies are showing the clay`s unique ability
to safely remove metals and environmental toxins from the body clears the way for greater
results with behavioral and integrative therapies.

The mothers of some autistic children may have made antibodies against their fetuses'
brain tissue during pregnancy that crossed the placenta and caused changes that led to
autism, suggests research led by Johns Hopkins Children's Center investigators and
published in the February issue of the Journal of Neuroimmunology.

A rare genetic disorder called tuberous sclerosis complex (TSC) is yielding insight into a
possible cause of some neurodevelopmental disorders: structural abnormalities in neurons,
or brain cells. Researchers in the F.M. Kirby Neurobiology Center at Children's Hospital
Boston, led by Mustafa Sahin, MD, PhD, and Xi He, PhD, also found that normal neuronal
structure can potentially be restored.If this could be done safely in humans, it might be
possible to ameliorate the symptoms of epilepsy, mental retardation and autism, which are
frequent complications of TSC, say the researchers. Their findings, accompanied by
commentary, were the cover article of the September 15 issue of Genes &
Development.TSC causes benign tumor-like lesions, which can affect every organ in the body
and are called tubers when they occur in the brain.

More pieces in the complex autism inheritance puzzle are emerging in the latest study from
a research team including geneticists from The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, the
University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and several collaborating institutions. This
study identified 27 different genetic regions where rare copy number variations 
missing or extra copies of DNA segments  were found in the genes of children with
autism spectrum disorders (ASDs), but not in the healthy controls. The complex combination
of multiple genetic duplications and deletions is thought to interfere with gene function,
which can disrupt the production of proteins necessary for normal neurological
development. "We focused on changes in the exons of DNAprotein-coding areas in
which deletions or duplications are more likely to directly disrupt biological
functions," said study leader Hakon Hakonarson, M.D., Ph.D., director of the Center
for Applied Genomics at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and associate professor of
Pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. "We identified
additional autism susceptibility genes, many of which, as we previously found, belong to
the neuronal cell adhesion molecule family involved in the development of brain circuitry
in early childhood." He added that the team discovered many "private" gene
mutations, those found only in one or a few individuals or familiesan indication of
genetic complexity, in which many different gene changes may contribute to an autism
spectrum disorder. "We are finding that both inherited and new, or de novo, genetic
mutations are scattered throughout the genome and we suspect that different combinations
of these variations contribute to autism susceptibility," said Maja Bucan, Ph.D.,
professor of Genetics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and Chair of
the Steering committee for Autism Speaks' Autism Genetic Resource Exchange (AGRE).
"We are grateful to families of children with autism spectrum disorders for their
willingness to participate in genetic studies because family-based studies have many
advantages. We have learned a lot both from genetic analyses of children with autism as
well as analyses of their patents and their unaffected siblings."

Generation Rescue was formed by parents of children who have been diagnosed with childhood
neurological disorders (NDs). Through our own research and initiative we have discovered a
truth that we feel every parent should know: Autism, Asperger's, ADHD, ADD, PDD-NOS, other
learning disabilities are all environmental illnesses that can be treated through
biomedical intervention. An overwhelming amount of evidence exists in the scientific and
medical literature to support this position, however, the information has been slow to
disseminate to the general public and to those who need it most- parents.

Dr. Jerry Kartiznel, who works with autistic children, believes that the proteins in wheat
and dairy wreak havoc on some children's brains. "Gluten in the body has been
theorized to make a morphinelike substance, and that morphinelike substance will
affect the brain," said Kartiznel.

Research on autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) shows that neurofeedback (EEG biofeedback)
can remediate anomalies in brain activation, leading to symptom reduction and functional
improvement. This evidence raises the hopes for a behavioral, psychophysiological
intervention moderating the severity of ASD.

Researchers at Johns Hopkins' McKusick-Nathans Institute of Genetic Medicine today are
releasing newly generated genetic data to help speed autism research. The Hopkins data,
coordinated with a similar data release from the Autism Consortium, aims to help uncover
the underlying hereditary factors and speed the understanding of autism by encouraging
scientific collaboration. These data provide the most detailed look to date at the genetic
variation patterns in families with autism.

Toddlers' focus on mouths rather
than on eyes is a predictor of autism severity

Scientists at Yale School of Medicine have found that two-year-olds with autism looked
significantly more at the mouths of others, and less at their eyes, than typically
developing toddlers. This abnormality predicts the level of disability, according to study
results published in the Archives of General Psychiatry. Lead author Warren Jones and
colleagues Ami Klin and Katelin Carr used eye-tracking technology to quantify the visual
fixations of two-year-olds who watched caregivers approach them and engage in typical
mother-child interactions, such as playing games like peek-a-boo. After the first few
weeks of life, infants look in the eyes of others, setting processes of socialization in
motion. In infancy and throughout life, the act of looking at the eyes of others is a
window into people's feelings and thoughts and a powerful facilitator in shaping the
formation of the social mind and brain. The scientists found that the amount of time
toddlers spent focused on the eyes predicted their level of social disability. The less
they focused on the eyes, the more severely disabled they were. These results may offer a
useful biomarker for quantifying the presence and severity of autism early in life and
screen infants for autism. The findings could aid research on the neurobiology and
genetics of autism, work that is dependent on quantifiable markers of syndrome expression.

Melatonin is an effective treatment
for sleep problems in children with autism

A study in the April 15 issue of the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine determined that
over-the-counter melatonin medication can shorted the length of time it takes for children
with autistic spectrum disorder (ASD), Fragile X Syndrome (FXS), or both to fall asleep at
the beginning of the night. Results of the study indicated that children who received
over-the-counter melatonin treatments experienced significant improvements in total night
sleep durations, sleep latency times, and sleep-onset times. Mean sleep duration was
longer on melatonin than placebo by 21 minutes, sleep-onset latency was shorter by 28
minutes and sleep-onset time was earlier by 42 minutes. According to the senior author,
Beth L. Goodlin-Jones, PhD of the M.I.N.D Institute at the University of California Davis
Health System in Sacramento, Calif., treatment with over-the-counter melatonin supplements
benefits children of all ages, which helps alleviate some of the additional stress that
parents of special-needs children experience. "Sleep onset problems at the beginning
of the night are very troublesome for children and their families," said
Goodlin-Jones. "Sometimes children may take one to two hours to fall asleep and often
they disrupt the household during this time." Authors report that sleep problems are
reported in up to 89 percent of children with autism and 77 percent of children with FXS,
the most common form of inherited mental impairment ranging from learning problems to
mental retardation, and also the most commonly known cause of autism. Dyssomnia
(difficulty falling asleep and frequent nighttime awakenings) are among the most commonly
reported problems. Researchers hypothesize that difficulty sleeping in these children is
increased due to abnormal levels of melatonin, a natural hormone secreted from the pineal
gland that is believed to promote sleep at night. The study included information from 12
children between the ages of 2 to 15.25 years. Sleep quality and quantity were measured
both objectively and subjectively. Five participants met diagnostic criteria for autism, 3
for FXS, 3 for FXS and ASD, and 1 for FXS alone.

Interesting new study in the upcoming issue of Journal of Autism and Developmental
Disorders which examines the historical emergence of the classification of autism
alongside the emergence of the classification of Aspergers.

A new study has used a large number of families with multiple autistic children to explore
the role of genes in the disorder. The results reinforce other findings that suggest the
disorder may be the result of the cumulative impact of many minor genetic problems.

A new multi-center study, conducted at The Feinstein Institute for Medical Research in
collaboration with five other centers throughout the country, tested the commonly
prescribed antidepressant citalopram and found that it was no more effective than placebo
in altering obsessive features of the condition  the spinning, rocking and
repetitive behavior. Like everything in medicine, the use of antidepressants in children
with autism spectrum disorder took off before there was strong scientific proof about its
effectiveness. In the last decade, its use has grown so that today more than 40 percent of
autistic children swallow a daily dose of an antidepressant. This study, published in the
June 2009 issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, should serve to reduce the number of
antidepressant prescriptions written for children with autism and similar conditions on
the autism spectrum. "Parents of children with autism spectrum disorders face an
enormous number of treatment options, not all of which are research based," said
Thomas R. Insel, MD, Director of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH).
"Studies like this help us to better understand which treatments are likely to be
beneficial and safe." The study was funded by the NIMH and other NIH institutes. The
Feinstein Institute's Joel D. Bregman, MD, an expert on autism and one of the study
investigators, said that the initial use of antidepressants grew out of a belief that some
of the repetitive behaviors are similar to those seen among people with obsessive
compulsive disorder. "We can't rely on apparent similarities to other conditions and
clinical experiences to guide our treatment strategies." Dr. Bregman said. "This
was a large double-blind clinical trial that showed that this class of medicine is not
effective in reducing these behaviors. These types of studies are essential." The
study followed 149 children between the ages of five and 17. About half were given a
placebo dose and the others received the antidepressant. They were tested repeatedly over
the 12-week study period. A positive response was defined by improvement on a number of
behavioral measurements. "There was no significant difference in the rate of positive
response" on these tests, the scientists concluded. "Results of the trial do not
support the use of citalopram for the treatment of repetitive behavior in children and
adolescents with autism spectrum disorder."

Bernadine Healy, the former head of the US National Institute for Health, admitted
they had altered evidence on the epidemiological studies conducted by the US Government to
suit the official line. She admitted the evidence both the US and UK relies on is useless.
The UK Government has a big dirty secret that it doesnt want the public to
know . . . they agreed to under write any compensation claims for the MMR.

Maternal immune response to fetal
brain during pregnancy a key factor in some autism

New studies in pregnant mice using antibodies against fetal brains made by the mothers of
autistic children show that immune cells can cross the placenta and trigger
neurobehavioral changes similar to autism in the mouse pups. A report on the research from
investigators at the Johns Hopkins Children's Center published online in the Journal of
Neuroimmunology expands on a 2008 report from the same team showing that mothers of
autistic children tested positive for fetal brain antibodies. Antibodies are proteins the
body naturally makes to attack foreign tissues, viruses or bacteria. Because a growing
fetus is not "rejected" by the mother's immune system even though some of its
DNA is "foreign" (from the father), scientists have long suspected that some
combination of maternal and fetal biological protection is at work. The new research from
Hopkins, however, suggests that the protective system is not perfect and that antibodies
are not only made but are re-circulated back to the fetus through the placenta, possibly
triggering inflammation in the brain and leading to a cascade of neurological changes
resulting in neurodevelopmental disorders, such as autism. Despite this new evidence, the
researchers warn against over-interpreting the results, saying prenatal exposure to
maternal antibodies is likely only one of several factors implicated in autism.
"Autism is a complex disorder and it would be naÔve to assume there's a single
mechanism that can cause it," says Harvey Singer, M.D., director of pediatric
neurology at Hopkins Children's. "It's most likely the cumulative result of several
factors, including genes, metabolism and environment. We believe we have identified one of
these factors." For the new study, Singer and colleagues injected antibodies from
mothers of autistic children into pregnant mice and used several standard neurobehavioral
tests to identify neurobehavioral changes in the pups. As control groups, they used
offspring of mice injected with antibodies from mothers of nonautistic children and the
offspring of mice who received no injections. "Comparing mice to humans is tricky,
and we should be cautious anytime we do so, but our findings strongly suggest that the
behaviors we observed in the offspring of mice injected with fetal brain antibodies from
human mothers did behave in a manner that mimics some behaviors seen in people with
autism," Singer says.

In this month of Autism Awareness, I am ever so aware of the great disparity for our
children on the autism spectrum regarding their diagnosis and healthcare. It brings to
light some major changes that need to take place in order to not only stop the perpetual,
exponentially expanding numbers of children developing autism, but to provide the already
affected children with proper medical care and treatment.

In summary, the "environment" for this area of research has improved, albeit
slowly. Incorporation of specific objectives targeting environmental risk factors in the
IACC Strategic Plan, together with clues emerging from ongoing studies and an increased
recognition of the potential for identification of preventable risk factors, should help
to create a new sense of urgency to address environmental hypotheses in ASD.

Autism prevalence in California, based on individuals eligible for state-funded services,
rose throughout the 1990s. The extent to which this trend is explained by changes in age
at diagnosis or inclusion of milder cases has not been previously evaluated.Autism
incidence in California shows no sign yet of plateauing. Younger ages at diagnosis,
differential migration, changes in diagnostic criteria, and inclusion of milder cases do
not fully explain the observed increases. Other artifacts have yet to be quantified, and
as a result, the extent to which the continued rise represents a true increase in the
occurrence of autism remains unclear.

New study explores the relationship
between preterm birth and autism spectrum disorder

Recent studies have suggested that autism spectrum disorder (ASD) may be more prevalent
among children born very prematurely. The early symptoms of ASD are also associated with
other conditions related to preterm births, such as cerebral palsy, which can make it
difficult to correctly screen children for ASD. Because of this, researchers have begun to
explore the relationship between preterm birth, cognitive and developmental impairments,
and ASD. Two articles soon to be published in The Journal of Pediatrics explore this
possible correlation between preterm birth and ASD. Dr. Karl Kuban and colleagues from
Boston University, Wake Forest University, and Harvard University studied 988 children
born between 2002 and 2004 who participated in the ELGAN (Extremely Low Gestational Age
Newborn) study, a large, multi-center study that enrolled more than 1500 infants born at
least three months prematurely. They wanted to explore whether children born preterm are
more likely to screen positive on the Modified Checklist for Autism in Toddlers (M-CHAT),
a survey administered to a caregiver regarding a child's behavior. Pediatricians typically
wait to formally diagnose ASD until after a child's third birthday. In this study,
however, the caregivers of the infants completed the M-CHAT when the children were 24
months of age. The researchers found that 21% of the preterm children screened positive
for ASD. Dr. Kuban and his colleagues were also interested in learning whether a child
born prematurely who had motor, visual, hearing, or cognitive impairments was more likely
to screen positive on the M-CHAT. Of the 988 children, 26% had cognitive impairments, 11%
had cerebral palsy, 3% had visual impairments, and 2% had hearing impairments. They also
observed that nearly half of the children with cerebral palsy and more than two-thirds of
the children with visual or hearing impairments screened positive. According to Dr. Kuban,
"Children who are born more than three months premature appear to be twice as likely
to screen positive on the M-CHAT." He notes, however, that the percentage of children
who screened positive for ASD dropped to 10% when the variables of cognitive, visual,
hearing, and motor impairments were removed.

Every family I have spoken with that did not vaccinate subsequent children tell me that
have not had autism recur in these children. Typically these are parents who didn't have
an in hospital hepatitis B vaccine either because they had a plan for their child ahead of
time. I think this particular group is increasing and I hope you have heard from more than
me.

Over the past 30 years, toxic chemicals, like Teflon, plastics, and formaldehyde have
increasingly invaded our homes. We used to think these substances were harmless, but a
rising tide of evidence has turned the spotlight on chemical exposures as a possible
poison to our children's developing brains.

Many children with autism have elevated blood levels of serotonin -- a chemical with
strong links to mood and anxiety. But what relevance this "hyperserotonemia" has
for autism has remained a mystery. New research by Vanderbilt University Medical Center
investigators provides a physical basis for this phenomenon, which may have profound
implications for the origin of some autism-associated deficits.

Every single case of ADHD, Dyslexia, Autism and Asperger's that I've ever seen has hasd a
blood sugar problem. They weren't already diagnosed as diabetic, but they FUNCTIONALLY had
insulin resistance, hypoglycemia and other blood sugar disturbances.

Brain network linked to
contemplation in adults is less complex in children

A brain network linked to introspective tasks  such as forming the self-image or
understanding the motivations of others  is less intricate and well-connected in
children, scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have
learned. They also showed that the network establishes firmer connections between various
brain regions as an individual matures.

Recent research shows that more than 50% of children with autism have GI symptoms, food
allergies, and maldigestion or malabsorption issues (Horvath). Its obvious from
talking to parents that GI problems are a major concern in children with autism. Listservs
dealing with autism have discussions on GI issues all the time. Antifungal use, both
prescription and alternative remedies, is a common topic. Parents have tried
anti-yeast diets, prescription drugs and natural remedies, but nothing seems
to be the answer to the chronic microbial problems their children face. Many
parents wish to pursue chelation for their children, but are unable to do so because of
their inability to get their childrens gut pathogens under control.

Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican candidate for president, has given
credibility to "strong evidence" of a link between autism and thimerosal in
childhood vaccines. He cited "divided scientific opinion" on the matter.

UA researchers on team that sees
link of autism to brain deficiency, inability to perceive self

Researchers are linking autism to a specific area of the brain and learning that the
condition is marked by a person's lack of self-awareness. The findings, by a team that
included researchers from the University of Alabama, are changing long-held concepts about
the condition, which affects more than a million Americans.

Since the 1970s, there has been much debate surrounding the fact that individuals with
autism have difficulty in understanding speech in situations where there is background
speech or noise. Today, at the annual meeting of the International Multisensory Research
Forum (June 29th  July 2nd) being held at The City College of New York (CCNY),
neuroscientists announced conclusive evidence to verify this fact. Speaking at the
conference, Dr. John J. Foxe, Professor of Neuroscience at CCNY said: Sensory
integration dysfunction has long been speculated to be a core component of autism spectrum
disorder (ASD) but there has been precious little hard empirical evidence to support this
notion. Viewing a speakers articulatory movements can greatly improve a
listeners ability to understand spoken words, and this is especially the case under
noisy environmental conditions.Delegates to the 10th annual meeting of the
International Multisensory Research Forum view poster session in the Lincoln Corridor of
Shepard Hall. These results are the first of their kind to verify that children with
autism have substantial difficulties in these situations, and this has major implications
for how we go about teaching these children in the classroom, he continued.
Children with autism may become distressed in large classroom settings simply
because they are unable to understand basic speech if the environment is sufficiently
noisy.

A Brown University research team has discovered something in the brain that could serve as
a target for future autism and mental retardation treatments.Discovery of the novel
Fragile X granule is detailed in the Feb. 4, 2009, issue of the Journal of Neuroscience.
This finding opens a new line of research about potential treatments for autism, a
neurological disorder that strikes young children and can impair development of social
interaction and communication. If you are going to treat the disease you need to be
able to target the defective elements, said Justin Fallon, professor of neuroscience
at Brown. The Fragile X granule offers such a target. Fallon is senior author
of the paper titled The FXG: A presynaptic Fragile X granule expressed in a subset
of developing brain circuits. Two postdoctoral students at Brown served as lead
authors: Sean Christie and Michael Atkins. James Schwob, a researcher from Tufts
University Medical School, also participated. Autism affects as many as 1.5 million
Americans, and the number is increasing, according to the Autism Society of America. It is
estimated that 1 in 150 births involve children with some form of autism. Autism can be
caused by a variety of genetic factors, but Fallons lab focused on one particular
area  the Fragile X protein. If that protein is mutated, it leads to Fragile X
syndrome, which causes mental retardation and is often accompanied by autism.There is
growing recognition in the field that autism and mental retardation are diseases of the
synapse, the basic unit of information exchange and storage in the brain. Many groups have
extensively studied the role of the Fragile X protein in the post-synaptic, or receiving
side of synaptic connections. This was a starting point for the research conducted by
Fallons team in their study of the Fragile X protein and synaptic connections in
healthy mice.

In a move autism family advocates call unprecedented, federal health officials have
concluded that childhood vaccines contributed to symptoms of the disorder in a 9-year-old
Georgia girl. While government officials continue to maintain that vaccines don't cause
autism, advocates say the recent settlement of the girl's injury case in a secretive
federal vaccine court shows otherwise.

New Study Pinpoints Difference in
the Way Children With Autism Learn New Behaviors

Researchers from the Kennedy Krieger Institute and Johns Hopkins University School of
Medicine have collaborated to uncover important new insights into the neurological basis
of autism. Their new study, published in the journal Nature Neuroscience, examined
patterns of movement as children with autism and typically developing children learned to
control a novel tool. The findings suggest that children with autism appear to learn new
actions differently than do typically developing children. As compared to their typically
developing peers, children with autism relied much more on their own internal sense of
body position (proprioception), rather than visual information coming from the external
world to learn new patterns of movement. Furthermore, researchers found that the greater
the reliance on proprioception, the greater the childs impairment in social skills,
motor skills and imitation. Previous research has shown that children with autism have
difficulty with motor skills, which appears to be associated with abnormalities in how the
brain learns motor actions. To study the models formed in the brain when children with
autism learn a new movement, researchers measured patterns of generalization as 14
children with autism and 13 typically developing children learned to reach using a novel
tool. They then examined how well children were able to generalize what they learned in
two separate ways  one that detected how much they relied on visual information to
guide learning and one that detected how much they relied on proprioceptive information to
guide learning. These findings can lead to important advances in methods for
treating autism.

Autism may be linked to being
firstborn, breech births or moms 35 or older

hildren who are firstborn or breech or whose mothers are 35 or older when giving birth are
at significantly greater risk for developing an autism spectrum disorder, University of
Utah School of Medicine researchers have reported in a new study with Utah children. In
the April 27, 2009, online issue of the journal Pediatrics, the researchers showed that
women who give birth at 35 or older are 1.7 times more likely to have a child with an
autism spectrum disorder (ASD), compared with women between the ages of 20-34. Children
diagnosed with ASD also were nearly 1.8 times more likely to be the firstborn child, the
researchers found. Although they didn't identify a causal relationship between breech
births and autism, children diagnosed with the disorder were more than twice as likely to
have been a breech presentation, meaning they were not born head first. "The results
of this study give us an opportunity to look more closely at these risk factors for
children across the autism spectrum, and not only those diagnosed with autism," said
first author Deborah A. Bilder, M.D., assistant professor of psychiatry. "This shows
that further investigation of the influence of prenatal factors is warranted." Autism
is a complex brain disorder that impairs social, communicative, and behavioral development
and often is characterized by extreme behavior.

A research team has connected more of the intricate pieces of the autism puzzle, with two
studies that identify genes with important contributions to the disorder. One study
pinpoints a gene region that may account for as many as 15 percent of autism cases, while
another study identifies missing or duplicated stretches of DNA along two crucial gene
pathways. Significantly, both studies detected genes implicated in the development of
brain circuitry in early childhood. "Because other autism researchers have made
intriguing suggestions that autism arises from abnormal connections among brain cells
during early development, it is very compelling to find evidence that mutations in genes
involved in brain interconnections increase a child's risk of autism," said study
leader Hakon Hakonarson, M.D., Ph.D., director of the Center for Applied Genomics at The
Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. He is on the faculty of the University of
Pennsylvania School of Medicine, as is his main collaborator, neuroscientist Gerard D.
Schellenberg, Ph.D. "This comprehensive research opens the door to more focused
investigations into the causes of autism disorders," said Philip R. Johnson, M.D.,
chief scientific officer at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. "It moves the
field of autism research significantly ahead, similar to the way oncology research
progressed a few decades ago with the discovery of specific genes that give rise to
cancers. Our extensive pediatric genomics program has pinpointed particular genes and
biological pathways, and this discovery provides a starting point for translating
biological knowledge into future autism treatments." The hospital's Center for
Applied Genomics, launched in 2006, is the world's largest facility dedicated to the
genetic analysis of childhood diseases.Collaborating with researchers from more than a
dozen institutions, including members of the Autism Genome Project (AGP), Hakonarson led
both studies, which appear today in online publication in Nature. Autism is the best known
of the autism spectrum disorders (ASDs), a group of childhood neurodevelopmental disorders
that cause impairments in verbal communication, social interaction and behavior. Currently
estimated to affect as many as one in 150 U.S. children, ASDs are known from family
studies to be strongly influenced by genetics. Previous studies have implicated several
chromosome regions harboring rare variants in raising the risk of ASDs, but until now,
research has not been consistent in identifying and replicating common genetic variants.
One of the two studies by Hakonarson's team is the first to identify common genetic
variants associated with autism. By using highly automated genotyping tools that scan the
entire genome of thousands of individuals, the researchers found that children with ASDs
were more likely than healthy controls to have gene variants on a particular region of
chromosome 5. That region is located between two genes, cadherin 9 (CDH9) and cadherin 10
(CDH10), which carry codes to produce neuronal cell-adhesion molecules.

In three studies, including the most comprehensive study of autism genetics to date,
investigators funded in part by the National Institutes of Health have identified common
and rare genetic factors that affect the risk of autism spectrum disorders. The results
point to the importance of genes that are involved in forming and maintaining the
connections between brain cells. "These findings establish that genetic factors play
a strong role in autism spectrum disorder," says Acting NIH Director Raynard Kington,
M.D., Ph.D. "Detailed analysis of the genes and how they affect brain development is
likely to yield better strategies for diagnosing and treating children with autism."
Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) comprise a group of disorders with core symptoms that
include social interaction problems, poor verbal and nonverbal communication and
repetitive behaviors. These disorders range from severe (autism) to mild (Asperger's
syndrome), and in total affect some 1 in 150 American children, about three-quarters of
whom are boys. Researchers theorize that the social parts of the brain are underdeveloped
in ASD. "Previous studies have suggested that autism is a developmental disorder
resulting from abnormal connections in the brain. These three studies suggest some of the
genetic factors which might lead to abnormal connectivity," says Thomas Insel, M.D.,
director of NIH's National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). The studies were funded in
part by the NIMH, the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), the
Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD),
the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD) and the
National Center for Research Resources (NCRR), all components of NIH. All three studies
were genome-wide association studies, which are undertaken to find clues about the causes
of complex disorders. Typically, these studies involve scanning the genome  the
entire set of DNA  for small differences between people who have a disorder and
people who do not. The largest study, reported in Nature, involved more than 10,000
subjects, including individuals with ASD, their family members and other volunteers from
across the U.S. The study was led by Hakon Hakonarson, M.D., Ph.D., a professor at the
University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and director of the Center for Applied
Genomics at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Among other principal investigators
on the study were Gerard D. Schellenberg, Ph.D., also a professor at the University of
Pennsylvania School of Medicine; and Daniel Geschwind, M.D., Ph.D., a professor at the
University of California, Los Angeles and director of UCLA's Center for Autism Research
and Treatment; and Margaret Pericak-Vance, Ph.D., a professor at the University of Miami
Miller School of Medicine and director of the Miami Institute for Human Genomics, who also
led an independent study that generated similar results.

Case Western Reserve research finds
that the lack of specific gene plays role in autism

It is estimated that three to six out of every 1,000 children in the United States have
autism  and the number of diagnosed cases is rising. Autism is one of a group of
series developmental problems called autism spectrum disorders (ASD) that appear in early
childhood, usually before age 3. Through symptoms and severity vary, all autism disorders
affect a child's ability to communicate and interact with others. It's not clear whether
this is due to better detection and reporting of autism, a real increase in the number of
cases, or both. That's why researchers at Case Western Reserve University, led by Gary
Landreth, a professor of neurosciences and neurology at the School of Medicine, have
pulled together a number of recent findings that link a common genetic pathway with a
number of human syndromes and a newly-recognized genetic form of autism, publishing them
in the January 29, 2009, issue of the prestigious journal Neuron. Landreth, whose research
team is made up of partners from the Cole Eye Institute at the Cleveland Clinic, the Louis
Stokes Cleveland VA Medical Center and the University of Pennsylvania, says his lab in
particular has been researching the class of enzymes called ERKs (extracellular signal
regulated kinase), which are the central elements of a major intracellular signal
transduction pathway. His research team has found that in animal models the ERKs 
known as ERK 1 and ERK 2  are required for normal brain, heart and facial
development. This common genetic pathway that acts to regulate the ERK signaling cascade
is particularly important in brain development, learning, memory and cognition. It has
been recently reported that mutation or deletion of elements within this signaling pathway
leads to developmental syndromes in humans that are associated with impaired cognitive
function and autism.

In the first neuroimaging study to examine motor execution in children with autism,
researchers at the Kennedy Krieger Institute have uncovered important new insight into the
neurological basis of autism. The study, published online in the journal Brains
April 23 Brain Advanced Access, compared the brain activity of children with high
functioning autism and their typically developing peers while performing a simple motor
tasktapping their fingers in sequence. The researchers found that children with
autism relied more heavily on a region of the brain responsible for conscious, effortful
movement, while their typically developing peers utilized a region of the brain important
for automating motor tasks. Children with autism also showed less connectivity between
different regions of the brain involved in coordinating and executing movement, supporting
the theory that a decreased ability of distant regions of the brain to communicate with
each other forms the neurological basis of autism. Researchers used fMRI scans to examine
the brain activity of 13 children with high functioning autism and 13 typically developing
children while performing sequential finger tapping. The typically developing children had
increased activity in the cerebellum, a region of the brain important for automating motor
tasks, while children with autism had increased activity in the supplementary motor area
(SMA), a region of the brain important for conscious movement. This suggests children with
autism have to recruit and rely on more conscious, effortful motor planning because they
are not able to rely on the cerebellum to automate tasks.

High-tech eye-tracking equipment
reveals autistic children look at a teacher's face less than normal children

A study by researchers at the UC Davis M.I.N.D. Institute has discovered an important clue
to why children with autism spectrum disorders have trouble imitating others: They spend
less time looking at the faces of people who are modeling new skills. The study was
conducted using high-technology eye-tracking headgear and software that measures with
precision the point at which a child is looking when learning a task. Researchers used an
actor to demonstrate a task on a computer screen. We found that the children with
autism focused on the demonstrators action and looked at the demonstrators
face much less often than did typically developing children, said Giacomo Vivanti, a
postdoctoral researcher at the M.I.N.D. Institute and the studys lead author.
"The typically developing children may be looking at the demonstrators face to
check for information on what to do or how to respond appropriately, information that the
children with autism are less inclined to seek. This is an important finding, because
children with autism have difficulty learning from others. This might be one key to why
that is so," Vivanti said. Imitation plays an important role in how children learn,
as well as in how people interact socially, said M.I.N.D. Institute researcher and senior
study author Sally J. Rogers, who has been studying imitation impairment and autism for
more than 20 years. This is a trait we see as early as we can diagnose autism, and
its one of the traits that is present even in mildly impaired adults, Rogers
said.

It seems that the majority of these children lack a specific enzyme that helps break down
proteins. The reason this is so important is that when you can't break down proteins, you
can't build muscle or neurological connections properly

Curemark Receives Investigational
New Drug Clearance for CM-AT for Autism

CM-AT is based upon the observation that many children with autism do not digest protein.
CM-AT is a proprietary therapy formulated to be released in the small intestine of
children with autism. Designed as an easily utilized powder taken three times a day, CM-AT
was developed with the children in the forefront. The administration of CM-AT with meals
allows for an increase in protein digestion thus potentially reducing allergy and
increasing the availability of essential amino acids. With proper protein digestion in a
subset of children with autism, the need for protein restricted diets, such as gluten-free
and casein-free diets, to which many children with autism have become accustomed, may no
longer be necessary. Being able to digest protein rather than avoid it will allow children
with autism greater access to the building blocks for the manufacture of new proteins such
as neurotransmitters. A partial or complete lack of protein digestion could further lead
to other gastrointestinal and digestive dysfunctions.Dr Fallon has identified a series of
biomarkers that determine which children with autism and PDD may have digestive
deficiencies underlying or as a major component of their disease. She further has carried
out an extensive clinical analysis to identify the role of secretory malfunctions of the
pancreas and/or gastrointestinal tract as they may be linked to the severe behaviors seen
in children with autism. Dr. Fallon has treated a large number of children with positive
results and has catalogued their treatment in over 350 children.

If the small intestine or pancreas itself is injured through the use of medications such
as Augmentin, or from vaccination or other insult, it is likely that the secretin
mechanism is unavailable or disrupted. For example, if the secretin mechanism is altered
due to injury to the lining of the small intestines by the urea/nitrogen residue from
Augmentin, then the entire pH change cannot take place. If the pH change does not occur
then the conversion of the inactive to the active forms of the digestive enzymes does not
occur. The face of the lack of conversion of the enzymes, incomplete or absent digestion
of certain foodstuffs can and will occur. So for example, if a lipase or protease such as
chymotrypsin is not converted from chymotrypsinogen to chymotryspin, or the pancreas does
not manufacture sufficient amounts of the enzymes, incomplete protein digestion will
occur. In the case of an incomplete or absent digestion of a fat or a protein, the
molecule of undigested protein for example, remains in the small intestines and can act as
an allergen. This allergen can act as a toxin to the body and produce buildup of certain
substances, which are further toxic to the body. In the case of fats, undigested fats can
become rancid and cause a toxic buildup in the body. The rancid fats can create an
allergic irritation or act as a poison. This is the idea which has been referred to as
leaky gut syndrome.

Children with autism do not make as
much of a compound called glutathione

Jill James, director of the Autism Metabolic Genomics Laboratory at the Arkansas
Childrens Hospital Research Institute (and professor of pediatrics at the University
of Arkansas for Medical Sciences) has found that many children with autism do not make as
much of a compound called glutathione as neurotypical children do. Glutathione is the
cells most abundant antioxidant, and it is crucial for removing toxins. If cells
lack sufficient antioxidants, they experience oxidative stress, which is often found with
chronic inflammation.

The Autism Research Institute (ARI), a non-profit organization, was established in 1967.
For more than 40 years, ARI has devoted its work to conducting research, and to
disseminating the results of research, on the triggers of autism and on methods of
diagnosing and treating autism. We provide research-based information to parents and
professionals around the world.

The rapid increase in environmental toxins in recent decades has surpassed the bodys
natural ability to adapt and detoxify. Now, more than ever, genetic differences
responsible for proper methylation (see below) are insufficient to protect the body. This
results in an ever increasing incidence of chronic conditions which may be a contributing
factor to autism.

The team reviewed 64 studies of prenatal risk factors for autism. It is the first time a
meta-analysis of the relationship between pregnancy-related factors and risk of autism has
been carried out. The analysis is published in the July issue of the British Journal of
Psychiatry.

The federal governments concession that vaccines may have triggered brain
deterioration with symptoms like autism in a young girl is sure to exacerbate concerns
among parents worried about immunizations.

World's largest DNA scan for autism
uncovers new gene variant for disorder

UCLA scientists, in partnership with 30 research institutions across the country, have
identified a new gene variant that is highly common in autistic children. And when
researchers scrutinized the activity of the gene, known as CDH10, in the fetal brain, they
discovered that it is most active in key regions that support language, speech and
interpreting social behavior. Published April 28 in the advance online edition of the
journal Nature, the two findings suggest that CDH10 plays a critical role in shaping the
developing brain and may contribute to a prenatal risk of autism. A variant is a gene that
has undergone subtle changes from the normal DNA yet is shared by a significant portion of
the population. "While this gene variant is common in the general population, we
discovered that it occurs about 20 percent more often in children with autism," said
study author Dr. Daniel Geschwind, director of the UCLA Center for Autism Treatment and
Research. "A major change like this in the genetic code is too common to be a simple
mutation  it is a risk factor in the origin of the disease." Using the largest
population sample to date, the scientists systematically scanned the DNA of 3,100
individuals from 780 families nationwide. Each family had at least two autistic children.
The scan connected autism to a specific region of chromosome 5, which previous studies at
UCLA and collaborating institutions had pinpointed as a hub for genetic variations linked
to higher autism risk. To verify the findings, Dr. Hakon Hakonarson at the Children's
Hospital of Pennsylvania led the team in conducting a second scan on the DNA of 1,200
individuals from families affected by autism, as well as nearly 6,500 healthy controls.
All participants shared European ancestry. The scientists evaluated the relationship of
more than half a million gene variants to autism and consistently discovered six changes
that occurred more frequently in autistic children than in the control group. These
variants sat on chromosome 5 between two genes, CDH9 and CDH10.

New Study Pinpoints Difference in
the Way Children with Autism Learn New Behaviors

Researchers from the Kennedy Krieger Institute and Johns Hopkins University School of
Medicine have collaborated to uncover important new insights into the neurological basis
of autism. Their new study, published in the journal Nature Neuroscience, examined
patterns of movement as children with autism and typically developing children learned to
control a novel tool. The findings suggest that children with autism appear to learn new
actions differently than do typically developing children. As compared to their typically
developing peers, children with autism relied much more on their own internal sense of
body position (proprioception), rather than visual information coming from the external
world to learn new patterns of movement. Furthermore, researchers found that the greater
the reliance on proprioception, the greater the childs impairment in social skills,
motor skills and imitation. Previous research has shown that children with autism have
difficulty with motor skills, which appears to be associated with abnormalities in how the
brain learns motor actions. To study the models formed in the brain when children with
autism learn a new movement, researchers measured patterns of generalization as 14
children with autism and 13 typically developing children learned to reach using a novel
tool. They then examined how well children were able to generalize what they learned in
two separate ways  one that detected how much they relied on visual information to
guide learning and one that detected how much they relied on proprioceptive information to
guide learning. These findings can lead to important advances in methods for
treating autism. Applying the knowledge gained in the current study, targeted
interventions can be developed that enhance visuo-motor associations in children with
autism as they learn new skills, said Dr. Stewart H. Mostofsky, study author and a
pediatric neurologist in the Department of Developmental Cognitive Neurology at the
Kennedy Krieger Institute. If done early enough, this could help to improve
development of motor, social and communicative skills in children with autism. Further, it
could also improve their ability to understand social cues because the brain systems
critical to forming internal models of behavior that guide our actions are also critical
to developing an understanding of the meaning of those actions. The study findings
also provide support for observations from previous studies suggesting that autism may be
associated with abnormalities in the wiring of the brain; specifically, with
overdevelopment of short range white matter connections between neighboring brain regions
and underdevelopment of longer distance connections between distant brain regions. The
findings from this study are consistent with this pattern of abnormal connectivity, as the
brain regions involved in proprioception are closely linked to motor areas, while
visual-motor processing depends on more distant connections.

Last December, Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, announced with great
fanfare that fever in children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) reduced or even
eliminated the symptoms of autistic behavior not only during a fever, but also up to a
week after it subsided. Dr. Andrew Zimmermann, whose team ran the study for the child
neurological institute, which was founded in 1937 to study and treat kids with cerebral
palsy, must have wondered: What caused this?

UC Davis to collaborate on nation's
most comprehensive study of autism early risk factors

A network of leading autism researchers from three regions across the country today
launched one of the largest research studies of its kind to investigate early risk factors
for Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). The network, called the Early Autism Risk
Longitudinal Investigation (EARLI) study, will follow up to 1,200 pregnant women who
already have a child with autism. The study is considered one of the best-equipped to
discover biological markers and environmental risk factors for autism, due to its elevated
autism-risk pregnancy cohort, wide-ranging data collection with extensive bio-sampling,
lengthy follow-up of pregnant women and their babies, and multidisciplinary team of expert
investigators. Under the study, researchers at four network field sites around the
country, including UC Davis, will study possible environmental risk factors and their
interplay with genetic susceptibility during the prenatal, neonatal and early postnatal
periods. The project will also investigate early biological indicators of autism. The
EARLI study is one of 11 National Institutes of Health Autism Centers of Excellence
projects nationwide.

Mothers of children with autism
have higher parental stress, psychological distress

Ask any mother and she'll tell you that raising a preschooler is no easy task. Now imagine
what it must be like to bring up a child with autism or a developmental delay. Researchers
at the University of Washington's Autism Center asked mothers about their experiences and
found that moms of children with autism had higher levels of parenting-related stress and
psychological distress than mothers of children with developmental delay. Children's
problem behavior was associated with increases in both parenting-related stress and
distress in both groups, but this relationship was stronger in mothers of children with
autism. "Both groups of women are dealing with children who need high levels of
care-giving. But there is something about autism that is making a difference and adding
stress and psychological distress to these mothers," said Annette Estes, lead author
of a new study and associate director of the UW Autism Center. Surprisingly, the research
also found no link between a child's decreased daily living skills and increased parental
stress and psychological distress. "This finding was counterintuitive," said
Estes, who is also a research assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences.
"If a child has more needs in getting dressed and in other daily living skills, that
means the parents are working harder and seemingly would be under stress. But it is not
the hard work that is stressing the mothers. Our findings really pointed to the behavior
problems that can occur with autism. Children with autism had significantly higher levels
of problem behaviors than children with developmental delay." These behavior problems
included such things as irritability, agitation, crying, inappropriate speech and not
being able to follow rules.

Research shows wide age gap between
possible and actual autism diagnosis

Timely identification and diagnosis of an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) can impact a
child's development and is the key to opening the door to the services and therapies
available to children with autism," says Paul Shattuck, Ph.D., assistant professor at
the George Warren Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis.
"Unfortunately, our research shows that the average age of autism diagnosis is nearly
six years old, which is three to four years after diagnosis is possible.

By asking the question the way she did, prior to the qualification on the flu shots, she
implied that all vaccines were mercury free. If she had gone to the FDA website she would
have seen that many vaccines still contain mercury.

Toddlers with autism appear more likely to have an enlarged amygdala, a brain area
associated with numerous functions, including the processing of faces and emotion,
according to a report in the May issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the
JAMA/Archives journals. In addition, this brain abnormality appears to be associated with
the ability to share attention with others, a fundamental ability thought to predict later
social and language function in children with autism. "Autism is a complex
neurodevelopmental disorder likely involving multiple brain systems," the authors
write as background information in the article. "Converging evidence from magnetic
resonance imaging, head circumference and postmortem studies suggests that brain volume
enlargement is a characteristic feature of autism, with its onset most likely occurring in
the latter part of the first year of life." Based both on its function and studies of
changes in its structure, the amygdala has been identified as a brain area potentially
associated with autism. Matthew W. Mosconi, Ph.D., and colleagues at the University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill conducted a magnetic resonance imaging study involving 50
autistic children and 33 control children. Participating children underwent brain scans
along with testing of certain behavioral features of autism at ages 2 and 4. This included
a measure of joint attention, which involves following another person's gaze to initiate a
shared experience. Compared to control children, those children with autism were more
likely to have amygdala enlargement both at age 2 and age 4. "These findings suggest
that, consistent with a previous report of head circumference growth rates in autism and
studies of amygdala volume in childhood, amygdala growth trajectories are accelerated
before age 2 years in autism and remain enlarged during early childhood," the authors
write. "Moreover, amygdala enlargement in 2-year-old children with autism is
disproportionate to overall brain enlargement and remains disproportionate at age 4
years."

Parents key in new measure to
evaluate language in children with autism

New parent questionnaire, developed at the University of Waterloo, will help health
practitioners to more accurately gauge the acquisition of language skills in children with
autism. The pioneering Language Use Inventory (LUI) is among a set of measures for
evaluating spoken language development in children with autism spectrum disorders,
recommended by an expert panel. The experts' report, Defining Spoken Language Benchmarks
and Selecting Measures of Expressive Language Development for Young Children with Autism
Spectrum Disorders, appears in the June 2009 issue of the Journal of Speech, Language and
Hearing Research. The report was commissioned by the National Institute of Deafness and
Other Communication Disorders. "This is very exciting news," said UW professor
Daniela O'Neill, a developmental psychologist who created the LUI. "This report will
be of tremendous help to researchers, clinicians and speech-language professionals
involved in intervention with young children with autism and we are very proud to see the
LUI included among the measures recommended for evaluating the efficacy of interventions
that target spoken language." The LUI is a standardized questionnaire that asks
parents about their child's use of language in many different kinds of settings. Research
from the Centers for Disease Control suggests the prevalence of autism spectrum disorders
to be one in 150 children. "The LUI looks at pragmatic language development which has
do with how young children are able to use their language effectively and successfully in
everyday interactions with other people in ways that are age-appropriate and
typical," O'Neill explained. "For example, to ask for help, comment about
noticeable things, tease, tell stories and give others information they might need. The
pragmatics of language can be an area of great difficulty for children with autism."
Difficulty with learning language and communicating with others is often one of the first
things that parents become concerned about. Parents have much valuable information to
offer about their child's language use to professionals evaluating their child. "A
parent has had the most experience watching their child try to use their language in a
host of different settings and with many different people." The LUI provides
speech-language pathologists and researchers with a new tool to evaluate a young child's
broad pragmatic use of language. As many as 14 per cent of preschool-age children in
Canada and the U.S. may be at risk for language disorders.

A hallmark of human nature is the ability to share information and to comprehend the
thoughts and intentions of others. Scientists refer to this skill as 'joint attention.'
Even though it is a vital skill, scientists know surprisingly little about its
development.

Hallmarks of autism are characteristic behaviors -- repetitive motions, problems
interacting with others, impaired communication abilities -- that occur in widely
different combinations and degrees of severity among those who have the condition.

Dawn Primarolo as UK Government Health Minister misled Parliament in a written answer to
Conservative MP Mark Pritchard that Bailey Banks successful damages claim in the US
Federal Court for an autistic condition caused by the MMR vaccine was non
autistic, stating Bailey had a non-autistic development delay.

The first known attempt to evaluate the sleep patterns of children with Asperper syndrome,
taking into account sleep architecture and the cyclic alternating pattern, finds that
children with AS have a high prevalence of some sleep disorders and mainly problems
related to initiating sleep and sleep restlessness together with morning problems and
daytime sleepiness.

A study led by researchers at the University of Southern California (USC) and Vanderbilt
University have identified a specific gene variant that links increased genetic risk for
autism with gastrointestinal (GI) conditions. The findings suggest that disrupted
signaling of the MET gene may contribute to a syndrome that includes autism and
co-occurring gastrointestinal dysfunction, says principal investigator Pat Levitt, Ph.D.,
director of the Zilkha Neurogenetic Institute at the Keck School of Medicine of USC and
chair-designate of the Department of cell and neurobiology. The study will appear in the
March Issue of the journal Pediatrics and is now available online. Autism is a
developmental disorder characterized by deficits in communication abilities, social
behavior disruption and inflexible behavior. While gastrointestinal conditions are common
among individuals with autism, researchers have long debated whether co-occurring GI
dysfunction represents a unique autism subgroup, Levitt and lead author Daniel Campbell,
Ph.D., say. "Gastrointestinal disorders don't cause autism. Autism is a disorder of
brain development," Levitt says. "However, our study is the first to bring
together genetic risk for autism and co-occurring GI disorders in a way that provides a
biologically plausible explanation for why they are seen together so often." In the
brain, the MET gene is expressed in developing circuits that are involved in social
behavior and communication. Disturbances in MET expression result in alterations in how
these critical circuits develop and mature, Levitt explains. Research indicates that MET
also plays an important role in development and repair of the GI system. Researchers
analyzed medical history records from 214 families in the Autism Genetic Resource Exchange
(AGRE). They found that a variant in the MET gene was associated with autism specifically
in those families where an individual had co-occurring autism and a GI condition. The
study brings researchers closer to understanding the complex genetic risks for autism.
However, further research is needed, as different combinations of genes are likely to
result in different types of autism features, Levitt says. "We believe that there are
other genes that will help identify different subgroups of individuals who have autism
spectrum disorder," he says. "We also believe that there needs to be research
looking at whether the children with co-occurring GI dysfunction and autism have unique
features that will help us predict what treatments will be best for them."

Researchers at the UC Davis M.I.N.D. Institute have found that infants later diagnosed
with autism exhibited unusual exploration of objects long before being diagnosed. Studying
a group of children at high risk for developing autism, the researchers found that those
eventually diagnosed with the disorder were more likely to spin, repetitively rotate,
stare at and look out of the corners of their eyes at simple objects, including a baby
bottle and a rattle, as early as 12 months of age.These findings could help pediatricians
diagnose and treat autism earlier, reducing some of the social and educational challenges
associated with the disorder."There is an urgent need to develop measures that can
pick up early signs of autism, signs present before 24 months," said M.I.N.D.
researcher Sally Ozonoff, first author of the current study, which was published in the
October issue of Autism, the journal of the National Autistic Society.

In October of 2007, there were 27 Million lead-related recalls of toys and other items,
including jewelry. And the symptoms of lead poisoning also mimic those of Autism. This is
creating quite the dilemma for many parents, and medical professionals.

The results are stunning. The data shows dramatic increases in neurological diseases and
asthma in vaccinated children. Generation Rescue is cautious in its interpretations. They
have taken a humble position, saying that, "We are a small non-profit organization.
For less than $200,000, we were able to complete a study that the CDC, with an $8 billion
a year budget, has been unable or unwilling to do. We think the results of our survey lend
credibility to the urgent need to do a larger scale study to compare vaccinated and
unvaccinated children for neurodevelopmental outcomes."

MIND researchers recently tested injections of methyl B12 in a controlled trial on 30
children, since prior recent findings had shown that some children with autism have
altered biomarkers for oxidative stress. The results werent statistically
significant, but Hendren says nine of the children did improve in language and
socialization, and those children had changes in biomarkers for oxidative stress. The
institute will run a larger trial this summer with 50 children in an effort to figure out
if the treatment really does have a benefit.

Dr Phil Bate, retired Orthomolecular
Psychologist, has discovered a safe and inexpensive method to Prevent Autism... by
considering the mercury load of the mother and its impact on her developing baby. For more
information on preventing autism, please go to DrBate's website, www.drbate.com

Belangenverstrengeling bij
genenonderzoek autisme

It is all very well for the Children's
Hospital of Philadelphia to make these claims but we need proper studies, studying
children with this gene who have not had vaccines, to find out if it is purely the gene
that caused the Autism. Even if the gene was found in the womb how does anyone know if it
was the gene that caused the subsequent Autism or like Lisa said, the gene was purely a
bio marker for children with this gene reacting and developing Autism as a result of
vaccination?

Rapid progress is being made on a number of
fronts with regard to understanding the factors that increase the risk for developing
autism. Autisms is among the most common of neurodevelopmental disorders. Autism risk also
is highly heritable. A brief overview of the current state of thinking regarding genetic
risk is discussed.

Autism Research Breakthrough

Scientists found what is being considered a
breakthrough in understanding autism, a possible genetic link among thousands of autistic
children around the country. Manuel Gallegus reports.

Out of the B12 family, only methyl-B12 has
the ability to activate the methionine/homocysteine biochemical pathway directly. It is
this pathway that is responsible for the body's entire sulfur-based detoxification system.
It is this pathway that is responsible for the formation of S-adenosylmethionine (SAMe),
the universal methyl donor. It is this pathway that is responsible for the formation of
homocysteine, the "crossroads" molecule that is responsible either to reform
methionine and SAMe or create cysteine, taurine and glutathione. Glutathione is the body's
primary intracellular antioxidant and is responsible for many detoxification reactions,
most notably those that involve the binding and removal of mercury, lead, cadmium,
arsenic, nickel, tin, antimony and many other lesser-known heavy metals that also bind to
glutathione's sulfer group.

Methyl-B12 works and it works well when
used as a pharmacological agent, not as a vitamin and when it is used for years instead of
months. Methionine synthase can use any form of B12 when it works in the body. However
methionine synthase functions much better in the brain with methyl-B12 and because brain
methylation products are what parents want to see in their children (focus, attention,
synchronization of brain waves, speech, language, socialization, emotion), methyl-B12 is
the only form of B12 that should be used to achieve these goals. Certain items block
methyl-B12 effectiveness and should not be used concurrently when parents are trying to
regain normal brain function in their child. The need for methyl-B12 in autism should be
thought of as being a dependency, not a deficiency problem. Most side effects will
diminish or resolve over time as the body re-establishes a new equilibrium while it keeps
the good and eliminates the bad. Caution must be used when interpreting tests of any kind
with methylation/transsulfuration biochemistry because only a clinical trial is able to
utilize the ultimate laboratory, ones own body. Whenever starting or changing a
methyl-B12 protocol, no other additions to or deletions from the childs current
treatment plan should occur for at least 4 to 6 weeks and the evaluation process should
use the methyl-B12 Parent Designed Report Form so that the childs response can be
accurately compared to the thousands of other childrens responses to methyl-B12
therapy.

A new study reveals a link between dysregulation of a common signaling pathway and
repetitive behaviors similar to those associated with multiple neurological and
neurodegenerative disorders including, autism spectrum disorders, obsessive compulsive
disorder, schizophrenia and Huntington's disease. The research, published by Cell Press in
the Dec. 11 issue of the journal Neuron, identifies a critical role for a molecule linked
to immunosuppression in learning, memory and repetitive behavior and may lead to the
development of new treatments for perseverative behaviors.

Autistic children are doubly stigmatized. On the one hand, they are often dismissed as
"low functioning" or mentally retarded, especially if they have poor speaking
skills as many do. But when they display exceptional visual discrimination or memory for
detail, they are dubbed "savants." New research in Psychological Science is
discovering the level and nature of autistic intelligence.

Schizophrenia and autism probably share a common origin, hypothesizes Dutch researcher
Annemie Ploeger following an extensive literature study. The developmental psychologist
demonstrated that both mental diseases have similar physical abnormalities which are
formed during the first month of pregnancy.

Examining three years of birth records and pesticide data, scientists from the Public
Health Department determined that the Central Valley women lived within 500 meters, or 547
yards, of fields sprayed with organochlorine pesticides during their first trimester of
pregnancy. Eight of them, or 28%, had children with autism. Their rate of autism was six
times greater than for mothers who did not live near the fields, the study said.

Studies involving genetic mutations related to autism, plus the results of removing the
compound thimerosal from children's vaccines, will be among topics addressed Sunday by
investigative journalist David Kirby.

In a breakthrough scientific study published today in the PNAS, scientists at the Burnham
Institute for Medical Research have shown that neural stem cell development may be linked
to Autism. The study demonstrated that mice lacking the myocyte enhancer factor 2C protein
in neural stem cells had smaller brains, fewer nerve cells and showed behaviors similar to
those seen in humans with a form of autism known as Rett syndrome.

My grandson Brandon was diagnosed and evaluated with autism at the age of 17 months. This
documentary depicts the end result of a 4 month culmination of reversing Brandons
autism naturally. Brandons window of opportunity opened at the age of 5
years, four months, and we followed his progress until the age of 5 years, 9 months. On
September 2 & 3, 2008, I was invited to share Brandons story on the most
comprehensive and cutting-edge health show on radio today [WGUN]To Your Health
with Dr. Chris Greene regarding Autism (feat. Laurie Ledbetter/Representative
for Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride (Gut and Psychology Syndrome) and Stuart
Tomc/National Educator and Spokesperson for Nordic Naturals).

In the first study of its kind, researchers have discovered that in autistic individuals,
connections between brain cells may be deficient within single regions, and not just
between regions, as was previously believed.

In the largest study of its kind, researchers have shown that the risk of autism increases
for firstborn children and children of older parents. The risk of a firstborn with an
autism spectrum disorder triples after a mother turns 35 and a father reaches 40.

A study by researchers at the UC Davis M.I.N.D. Institute has found that the seven- to
eight-fold increase in the number children born in California with autism since 1990
cannot be explained by either changes in how the condition is diagnosed or counted 
and the trend shows no sign of abating. Published in the January 2009 issue of the journal
Epidemiology, results from the study also suggest that research should shift from genetics
to the host of chemicals and infectious microbes in the environment that are likely at the
root of changes in the neurodevelopment of California's children. "It's time to start
looking for the environmental culprits responsible for the remarkable increase in the rate
of autism in California," said UC Davis M.I.N.D. Institute researcher Irva
Hertz-Picciotto, a professor of environmental and occupational health and epidemiology and
an internationally respected autism researcher. Hertz-Picciotto said that many
researchers, state officials and advocacy organizations have viewed the rise in autism's
incidence in California with skepticism.

New cells are born every day in the brain's hippocampus, but what controls this birth has
remained a mystery. Reporting in the January 1 issue of Science, neuroscientists at the
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine have discovered that the birth of new cells,
which depends on brain activity, also depends on a protein that is involved in changing
epigenetic marks in the cell's genetic material. "How is it that when you see someone
you met ten years ago, you still recognize them? How do these transient events become long
lasting in the brain, and what potential role does the birth of new neurons play in making
these memories?" says Hongjun Song, Ph.D., an associate professor of neurology and
member of the Johns Hopkins Institute of Cell Engineering's NeuroICE. "We really want
to understand how daily life experiences trigger the birth and growth of new neurons, and
make long-lasting changes in the brain." The researchers reasoned that making
long-term memories might require long-term changes in brain cells. And one type of
cellular change that has long-lasting effects is so-called epigenetic change, which can
alter a cell's DNA without changing its sequence but does change how and which genes are
turned on or off. So they decided to look at the 40 to 50 genes known to be involved in
epigenetics, and see if any of them are turned on in mouse brain cells that have been
stimulated with electroconvulsive therapyshock treatment. "It's long been known
that ECT induces neurogenesis in rodents and humans, so we used it as our test case to
find what is triggered downstream to cause new cells to grow," says Song.One gene
turned on in response to ECT was Gadd45b, a gene previously implicated in immune system
function and misregulated in brain conditions like autism. To confirm Gadd45b is turned up
in response to brain activity, the researchers also examined mice experiencing a different
activity. Exposure to new surroundings, the team found, also turns on Gadd45b in brain
cells.

Children's National scientists
uncover key developmental mechanisms of the amygdala

For the first time, scientists at Children's National Medical Center have successfully
identified a key developmental program for the amygdalathe part of the limbic system
that impacts how the brain creates emotional memories and responses. This knowledge could
help scientists to better understand autism and similar disorders in which altered
function of this region is known to occur. The findings, published in the February edition
of Nature Neuroscience, identify a group (otherwise known as a pool) of precursor cells of
neurons that are earmarked specifically for the amygdala and comprise part of a unique
system of growth and development for this portion of the brain. "Despite its central
role in normal brain function and behavior, little has been known about how neuronal cell
diversity is generated during development of the amygdala," said senior author Joshua
Corbin, PhD, of the Center for Neuroscience Research at Children's National. "It was
thought that development of this region occurred similarly to other brain structures like
the cerebral cortex, but our findings indicate that a specific precursor pool exists that
is pre-assigned exclusively to the limbic system. It is a breakthrough to our
understanding of this little studied region of the brain." Using studies of embryonic
mice, Corbin and his team located two specific pools of precursor cells marked by the
transcription factor Dbx1 that migrate from both the ventral pallium and the preoptic
areaa previously undiscovered pool of migratory cellsto create the requisite
mix of excitatory and inhibitory neurons that ultimately comprise the amygdala.
Remarkably, the preoptic area precursor cells are exclusive contributors to the
development of the limbic system, and no other portion of the brain."Altered function
of the amygdala is a hallmark characteristic of disorders such as autism," said Dr.
Corbin. "A more clear understanding of the normal development of this important brain
structure provides a roadmap to understand the consequences of altered brain development
in neurodevelopmental disorders."

Professor Marion Leboyer of the Psychiatry Genetic Team INSERM and director of the
specialized French research foundation for psychiatric disorders, Fondation FondaMental,
Paris, will present at the 21st ECNP Congress the compelling neurobiological story of
discovering the first autism genes. Thereby she will highlight new findings on the role of
gene mutations, their association with synapse abnormalities, and -- surprisingly -- a
connection between circadian rhythms and autism risk. These insights will nurture applied
projects on the development of new therapeutic strategies.

Once they go on this diet, you usually see a great calming, said Dr. Kendal
Stewart, a neuro-otologist, board certified in ear, nose and throat disorders with
training in neurology and neurosurgery. He says autistic children all have troubled immune
systems. These kids do have a higher rate of having sensitivities to wheat and
casein, said Dr. Stewart.

When it comes to recognizing faces, children with autism aren't as readily adaptable as
are normal kids, according to a study reported online in Current Biology, a publication of
Cell Press, on Aug. 30, 2007. That's despite the fact that kids with autism can identify
similarities among related faces just as well as other children, the researchers found.

UNC, Caltech research finds further
evidence for genetic contribution to autism

This manifests as a tendency not to prefer interactions with others, not to enjoy
small talk for the sake of the social experience and to have few close
friendships involving sharing and mutual support, said Piven, senior author of the
study, Sarah Graham Kenan professor of psychiatry in the UNC School of Medicine and
director of the newly established Carolina Institute for Developmental Disabilities.
This characteristic is really a variation of normal and not associated with any
functional impairment.

Autism's social struggles due to
disrupted communication networks in brain

Picking up on innuendo and social cues is a central component of engaging in conversation,
but people with autism often struggle to determine another person's intentions in a social
interaction. New research from Carnegie Mellon University sheds light on the neural
mechanisms that are responsible for such social difficulties in autism, and on the
workings of these social brain mechanisms in all of us.

Individuals with autism and fragile X syndrome share many symptoms, and there may be
common neurobiological abnormalities underlying these symptoms. David Hessl, an associate
professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and a researcher at the
M.I.N.D. Institute, will share recent findings from his laboratory and others focusing on
this topic in the Jan. 22 Minds Behind the M.I.N.D. lecture.

A new way of understanding autistic disorders, incorporating both psychological and
biological factors, could lead to the conditions being picked up earlier, research from
the University of New South Wales has found.

Results of an early study suggest that dairy-free diets and unconventional food
preferences could put boys with autism and autism spectrum disorder (ASD) at higher than
normal risk for thinner, less dense bones when compared to a group of boys the same age
who do not have autism.

In another tantalizing link between the immune system and autism, researchers at the
University of California Davis have found 11 genes, all governing natural
killer immune cells, that are more active in autistic children than in other
youngsters.

A group of genes with known links to natural-killer cells  the first to attack
viruses, bacteria and malignancies  are expressed at high levels in the blood of
children with autism when compared to children without the disorder, according to a new
study from the UC Davis M.I.N.D. Institute. Researchers also found gene expression
distinctions in children with early onset and regressive forms of the disorder. The
outcomes, published in the January issue of Genomics, offer hope that gene expression
analyses can provide biological evidence of autism, currently diagnosed only through
behavioral assessments, in some children.

Accelerated head growth can predict
autism before behavioral symptoms start

Children with autism have normal-size heads at birth but develop accelerated head growth
between six and nine months of age, a period that precedes the onset of many behaviors
that enable physicians to diagnose the developmental disorder, according to new research
from the University of Washingtons Autism Center. The study also indicates that this
aberrant growth is present in children who have the early onset form of autism as well as
those later diagnosed with the regression type of the disorder, according to Sara Webb,
who led the research.

Carlo developed a theory that low frequency cell phone signals are harmful to cell
function. This results in cells protecting themselves by stopping movement of nutrients
and waste products through the cellular membrane. Inability to move wastes outside cells
results in a buildup of toxins. This led him to suspect a connection with the enormous
increase in autism. His hypothesis suggests that autistic children are less able to
process heavy metals, so they remain in their bodies (primarily the brain) and cause
neurological damage, including autism.

AN EXTRAORDINARY dispute has broken out between people with autism and a charity that aims
to help them. At stake is how such people are perceived by the general public. Like many
people with autism, an autistic blogger who goes by the screen name "Abscout" is
angry about the way the condition is portrayed by some charities. To try and paint a
different picture, Abscout set up a spoof website called NTSpeaks.org, a parody of the
site of the New York-based charity Autism Speaks. The NT stands for neurotypical, a term
sometimes used by people with autism to describe the rest of the population.

Scientists have found a genetic mutation linked to autism, but news coverage of the
discovery have made it out to be far more important than it actually is. The mutations are
present in only 1 percent of all kids with autism; in the other 99 percent, something else
is going on.

Can autism be "cured" with diet? Researchers at the University of Texas Health
Science Center at Houston embark on a double-blind study to find out if wheat and dairy
products can affect autistic behavior, as some parents believe.

On February 8, 2007 the CDC released New Data on Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs)
from Multiple Communities in the United States. (1)Since then, most people and the
press have been under the impression that in the United States, the new CDC-
reported ASD prevalence rate of 1 in 150 was a recent discovery that was current for 2007
when indeed it was not at all. The study did not document a prevalence of 1 in 150 among
children born now or five years ago. The study revealed that among U.S. children born in
1994, thirteen years ago, 1 in 150 on average had a spectral disorder.

Poor recognition of 'self' found in
high functioning people with autism

Contrary to popular notions, people at the high end of the autism spectrum disorder
continuum suffer most from an inability to model "self" rather than impaired
ability to respond to others, said Baylor College of Medicine researchers in a report that
appear in the journal Neuron. This inability to model "self" can disrupt an
individual's ability to understand the world as a whole, said Dr. P. Read Montague Jr.,
professor of neuroscience, and director of the Human Neuroimaging Lab and the
Computational Psychiatry Unit at BCM. "It's an interesting disconnect."

The Geier studies might have been ignored if not for the fact that a few years earlier, in
1999, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP)
asked vaccine-makers to remove thimerosal from vaccines as quickly as possible. This move
came after they realized that since 1991, children receiving routine vaccines had been
getting amounts of thimerosal that might push them over accepted levels of mercury.

New research from the UC-Davis M.I.N.D. Institute shows that an interaction between fetal
brain cells and maternal antibodies could be linked with the repetitive behavior -- also
called stereotypies -- that is characteristic of autism. While additional studies are
needed to confirm the outcome, this result leads investigators to suspect that
brain-directed antibodies during the prenatal period could be a causal factor for the
disorder.

Some cases of autism may be traced
to the immune system of mothers during pregnancy

New research from the UC-Davis M.I.N.D. Institute and Center for Children's Environmental
Health has found that antibodies in the blood of mothers of children with autism bind to
fetal brain cells, potentially interrupting healthy brain development. The study authors
also found that the reaction was most common in mothers of children with the regressive
form of autism, which occurs when a period of typical development is followed by loss of
social and/or language skills.

Loss of a small portion of chromosome 16, known as 16p11.2, is significantly associated
with autism researchers report in the journal Human Molecular Genetics. Although this
genetic microdeletion occurred in only 4 out of 712 subjects with autism (0.6 percent), it
is the second most common recurrent genomic disorder associated with autism, which affects
about 1 out of 160 children in the United States.

Researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center are uncovering how brain cells are affected
in Fragile X syndrome, the most common cause of inherited mental retardation and the most
common genetic cause of autism.

Abnormalities in auditory and language processing may be evaluated in children with autism
spectrum disorder by using magnetoencephalography (MEG), according to a study presented
today at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).
"Using MEG, we can record the tiny magnetic fields associated with electrical brain
activity," said Timothy Roberts, Ph.D., vice chair of research in the Department of
Radiology at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. "Recorded brain waves change with
every sensation, thought and activity. It's like watching a movie of the brain in real
time." Typically used for epilepsy evaluation, MEG can also be used to identify
timing abnormalities in the brains of patients with autism. "We found that signatures
of autism are revealed in the timing of brain activity," Dr. Roberts said. "We
see a fraction of a second delay in autistic patients." Autism is a complex
developmental disability that affects approximately one in every 150 American children,
mostly boys, according to the Autism Society of America. Autism inhibits the brain
functions that govern the development of social and communication skills. For a MEG exam,
a helmet that houses magnetic detectors and looks similar to an old-fashioned hair dryer
is lowered over the patient's head while the patient remains in a seated position. The
helmet analyzes electrical currents from the brain.

Faint magnetic signals from brain activity in children with autism show that those
children process sound and language differently from non-autistic children. Identifying
and classifying these brain response patterns may allow researchers to more accurately
diagnose autism and possibly aid in developing more effective treatments for the
developmental disorder. Timing appears to be crucial. "Children with autism respond a
fraction of a second more slowly than healthy children to vowel sounds and tones,"
said study leader Timothy Roberts, Ph.D., vice chair of radiology research and holder of
the Oberkircher Family Endowed Chair in Pediatric Radiology at The Children's Hospital of
Philadelphia. Roberts used a technology called magnetoencephalography (MEG), which detects
magnetic fields in the brain, just as electroencephalography (EEG) detects electrical
fields.

Today's issue of the American Journal of Human Genetics, describes what might be a corner
piece of the autism puzzle -- the identification and subsequent validation of a gene
linked to the development of autism by three separate groups of scientists. An
accompanying commentary by Dr. Dietrich Stephan, Director of the Neurogenomics Division at
the Translational Genomics Research Institute, further explains the findings.

UCLA scientists have used language onset ? the age when a child speaks his or her first
word ? as a tool for identifying a new gene linked to autism. The research team also
discovered that the gene is most active in brain regions involved with language and
thought.

The Enzymes and Autism forum is for the discussion of digestive enzymes (and many other
types of supplements) and how their supplementation affect those dealing with conditions
of the autistic spectrum/PDD, attention deficit, sensory integration,
digestion/malabsorption, food sensitivities/allergies and other uses. We welcome comments
and questions about using enzymes in any way, including but not limited to those dealing
with restrictive diets, treatments, feeding issues, and intestinal health. Please treat
all with respect; well-phrased and polite dissents may be posted, without flaming. This
non-commercial, volunteer, semi-moderated list sees about 50+ posts per day. You may want
to edit your membership so you receive the posts as a Digest, or to view the posts on the
Web Only. Statements posted on this list are for information only, and should not be taken
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membership pending, please notify kdefelice@thundersnow.com and you will be subscribed
directly. Thank you.

Recent research shows that more than 50% of children with autism have GI symptoms, food
allergies, and maldigestion or malabsorption issues (Horvath). Its obvious from
talking to parents that GI problems are a major concern in children with autism. Listservs
dealing with autism have discussions on GI issues all the time. Antifungal use, both
prescription and alternative remedies, is a common topic. Parents have tried
anti-yeast diets, prescription drugs and natural remedies, but nothing seems
to be the answer to the chronic microbial problems their children face. Many
parents wish to pursue chelation for their children, but are unable to do so because of
their inability to get their childrens gut pathogens under control.

"Glutathione is the major antioxidant in cells important for detoxification and
elimination of environmental toxins, and its active form is reduced in about 80 percent of
the kids with autism," says Dr. S. Jill James, director of the biochemical genetics
laboratory at Arkansas Children's Hospital Research Institute.

A special zinc binding protein found in the brain called metallothionin-3 is oxidized by
the inflammatory processes initiated by the fever. As this zinc binding protein is
oxidized, zinc is released from its binding sites in high quantities and this damages the
nearby brain cells. Due to the release of zinc into the brain from the damaged
metallothionin-3 during an infectious process, certain brain cell receptors (NMDA
receptors) are injured by the zinc. This injury allows calcium to enter the neurons. An
increase in intracellular calcium damages and cripples the nerve cells energy
producing mitochondria. These crippled neurons then no longer function well and become
over excitable whenever they are asked to perform tasks. These changes may well be the
reason for the hyperactive or even bizarre behavior seen in these autistic children.

Interest in these aspects came about as a result of parental observation and study.
Parents observed that particular foods appeared to result in the appearance of bad
behaviours in their children. These foods such as apple juice, citrus fruits, chocolate
and paracetamol were precisely those that were known to precipitate migraine attacks in
susceptible individuals. The parents also noted the according high incidence of migraines
within the families of people with autism. They noted that certain enzymes tended to be
functioning sub-optimally in migraine and wondered if the same situation pertained in
autism. They coerced Rosemary Waring, a well-known researcher into these aspects, into
testing a group of children with autism.

In many cases, children with neurological issues such as autism and seizure disorder are
also experiencing symptoms of chronic constipation, periods of diarrhea, abdominal pain,
and indications of intestinal bacterial and fungal overgrowth. More and more parents and
clinicians are begin-ning to connect the function of the gut with the brain and are
finding that correcting digestive imbalances by altering the diet can lead to significant
overall improvement in the child's mental and physical health and in several cases reduce
or even eliminate aberrant behavior and seizure activity.

The good news is that SCD food tastes good. SCD baked goods are delicious, satisfying, and
some are easy to make. Foods allowed on the SCD include fruits, most vegetables, meat,
nuts and honey. Some children are able to tolerate properly prepared goat yogurt as well.
The SCD is not a diet that limits simple carbohydrate intake. Creative SCDers have come up
with an incredible array of delicious, easy-to-cook recipes. Recent research shows that
80% of autistic patients met the criteria for malabsorption (B. Walsh). Also, the majority
had low intestinal carbohydrate digestion (K. Horvath). Carbohydrates are categorized into
monosaccharides (single sugars), disaccharides (double sugars), and polysaccharides (long
strands of sugars). When the intestinal wall is damaged and/or carbohydrate digestion is
impaired, the body loses its ability to absorb disaccharides and polysaccharides. Since
they are not broken down and absorbed in the small intestine, they are available to the
yeast and bacteria in the large intestine Toxic by-products of the yeast and bacteria can
further damage the intestinal tract worsening the problem and creating a vicious cycle.

How about having someone (preferably no one with a vested interest in the outcome) fund a
study that actually delves into what is in the blood of our autistic vs. nonautistic kids?
Are heavy metals routinely seen in this lab work or not? Now, that seems like a
straightforward, nonflawed study.

Study "Disproving"
Mercury-Autism Link Published in Journal with Financial Ties to Vaccine Manufacturers

While the mainstream press is widely reporting a new study "disproving" any link
between autism and mercury-containing thimerosal in vaccines, no one has bothered to point
out that the study was published in a medical journal stacked full of ads from the very
same drug companies that manufacture and market vaccines. The Journal, the Archives of
General Psychiatry, is the pro-drug psychiatric arm of the American Medical Association, a
pill-pushing organization tarnished by a history of conspiracy against alternative
medicine and the promotion of toxic substances like cigarettes with full-page ads in its
flagship publication, JAMA.

Autism is a frustrating condition for those who live it and for the researchers who seek
to unravel it. Because the developmental disorder tends to run in families, genetic
factors are likely to play a role in disease risk, but the quest to locate the responsible
genes has been mostly fruitless. A new genome-wide scan led by researchers at the Broad
Institute of MIT and Harvard and members of the Boston-based Autism Consortium has added a
piece to the autism puzzle by identifying a region of the genome that is missing in some
people with autism and duplicated in others. The findings, published in the January 10
issue of New England Journal of Medicine, help explain roughly 1% of autism cases, and
contribute to the ongoing effort to lay bare the disorders genetic underpinnings.

Rice University researchers have found a potential clue to the roots of epilepsy, autism,
schizophrenia and other neurological disorders. While studying the peripheral nerves of
the Drosophila, aka the fruit fly, Rice doctoral student Eric Howlett discovered an
unanticipated connection between glutamate  an amino acid and neurotransmitter in
much of the food we eat  and phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K), an enzyme that,
Howlett found, regulates the activity of neurons. Howlett and his colleagues, graduate
student Curtis Chun-Jen Lin, research technician William Lavery and Michael Stern, a
professor of biochemistry and cell biology, discovered that negative feedback mediated by
PI3K regulates the excitability of neurons, an issue in a number of ailments that include
neurofibromatosis, and that a mutation in a glutamate receptor gene common to both the
fruit fly and humans has the ability to disrupt that regulatory mechanism. Howlett found
the Drosophilas metabotropic glutamate receptor (DmGluRA) gene, when mutated,
increased the excitability of the neuron by preventing PI3K from doing its job.